Old Ghosts and New Family
by Flames and Fairy Tales
Summary: A phone call with bad news sents the members of Lockwood and Co. up to the North of England so Lucy can be with her family. Meanwhile, the agency tries to deal with a dangerous ghost haunting the local train station
1. Chapter 1

I transferred my weight to my front foot, pushed off with my other foot and thrust my arm forward, driving the tip of my rapier deeply into the straw body of Floating Joe. The practice dummy swung back with the blow, and I had to step in to avoid losing my balance.

"Your starting stance is too wide, Lucy," Lockwood called from behind me. He, Holly and I were down in the rapier room, practicing a lunge Lockwood liked to use on Cold Maidens. He had been correcting Holly's grip on her rapier while I went through the movements, but had apparently looked up just in time to see me make a mistake.

"What do you mean?" I asked, looking back at him over my shoulder before turning back to tug my sword out of Floating Joe. Leaving Holly to her own devices for the moment, Lockwood walked over to me in a few quick strides.

"Take the starting position again," He told me, holding out an arm to stop the practice dummy from swinging into us. I did as he asked, copying the way he stood when he first showed us the move.

"You're actually standing better already, but…" Without warning, Lockwood placed a hand on my shoulder and gave a sharp push. It wasn't a particularly hard shove, but the unexpected force was enough to throw me off balance, and I almost toppled over.

"If your stance is too wide, you'll lose your balance faster," he explained. "Even in the if it's just in the first position, it will affect the entire attack."

I nodded and took the stance again. While Lockwood helped me adjust my position, the phone in the office area started to ring. Holly was about to go pick it up when it stopped, which meant George had picked it up in the library.

A few strands of hair stuck to my temple with sweat, and I wiped them back before repeating the exercise under Lockwood's supervision. It was surprising how graceful he managed to look in his exercise clothes. We had all been working out for roughly an hour, but you wouldn't have guessed it by looking at him. His forehead gleamed with the hint of sweat, but that was about the only hint he had actually been exerting himself too. Compared to my dishevelled appearance he looked like a model, and that while even Holly was starting to look overheated.

Lockwood took a step back and watched my stance appraisingly before nodding, apparently satisfied with the adjustments.

"Alright, show me the lunge."

I did as he asked, lunging at Floating Joe in the manner he'd shown us. This time I managed to keep my balance better when the dummy moved with my blow.

"Perfect!" Lockwood exclaimed, a smile growing on his face. "Well done Luce! How are you holding up Holly?"

While Lockwood returned his attention to Holly, I repeated the exercise a few more times until my arms grew heavy and my T-shirt stuck to my back with sweat. I lowered my rapier. Ever since Lockwood and I had returned from the Other Side, there was a lingering weariness in my body. It was going away ever so slowly, but even a month after returning to London, I still tired out faster than I used to before we walked through that frozen world.

I put my rapier back in the rack with the other practice swords and stretched.

"I'm calling it quits for today," I announced as I walked towards the spiral stairs leading to the kitchen. "Going to take a shower."

"Don't take too long," Holly said, "I want to shower soon too!"

"You'll just have to wait, I'm calling dibs," I called back. Holly only showered here after exercising or gruelling cases, but she had a tendency to take long. Whatever she did to get her hair so shiny, it took a long time.

And while there were two bathrooms, it was impossible for two people to shower at the same time. If you tried, at least one person was guaranteed a cold surprise. We had found that out the hard way when I was washing my hair upstairs and Holly jumped under the shower on the first floor after exercising.

We had been exercising a lot, lately. After Penelope Fittes had waltzed into our festive breakfast a few days after we had returned to London, the swing of things had changed. The large cases we used to drag in before Aldbury Castle would be snagged up by her agency, and we were stuck with the small fries. In the past few weeks we had only seen Stone Knockers, Cold Maidens and Shades and those cases were easy to prepare for, leaving us with ample time to focus on other things.

Now that Fittes had control over the two largest agencies in London, she was asserting her power. Smaller agencies were encouraged to merge, or better yet become a part of the Fittes Agency. The official reason was that joining resources would keep the agents safe. The unofficial one? It was easier to seize control of a few larger agencies and keep an eye on the little ones that remained.

Her influence was even starting to seep into DEPRAC, and we had been the subject of a surprise 'routine inspection' already. That was not to mention the few times we'd spotted people following us on the streets. The message was clear: stay in line and keep your attention to your small cases.

Of course, we _did_ have an investigation running on the down low. The moment after Penelope Fittes and her lapdog Sir Rupert Gale had left after laying down their new rules, the skull in the jar had let it slip that Penelope and Marissa Fittes were one and the same. George had thrown himself into researching the issue with a passion we had last seen of him during the Chelsea Outbreak.

I was halfway up the staircase when the door to the kitchen opened to reveal George.

"Ah, right on time Luce. The phone's for you," he said.

"Oh? Who is it then?" I asked curiously. There weren't a lot of people who called us for anything besides cases, and even fewer who would call me in particular.

"Mary," George replied. He took off his glasses and gave them a quick rub on his t-shirt. "I'm assuming it's important, but I couldn't get a lot of sense out of her. She's a tad upset if you ask me, took me two whole minutes to get her name."

"Right, thanks George," I said, brushing past him. I hurried through our small kitchen, through the hall and then entered the library. It was rare for Mary to call, most of our communication went through letters, and she had called me twice since I left home at the most. She was content with our letter correspondence, and I couldn't think of a reason for her to change it so suddenly. She wasn't fond of change.

"Lucy Carlyle speaking," I said after sinking down into the leather armchair next to the phone and picking up the horn from the side table. There was a shuffling sound on the other end of the line as if Mary had sat up sharply.

"Oh thank God, finally," she sighed. I heard a little sniffle, which immediately piqued my concern.

"Is everything all right, Mary?"

"I've been trying te reach you for hours!" She replied sharply. Both her tone and the thickening of her accent caught me off guard, and for a moment I didn't know how to reply to her.

"I called yer place in Tooting, and some weirdo picked up the phone. I thought ye had been kidnapped!"

"Mary, I-

"What are ye even doing at Lockwood & Co.'s? I thought ye were a freelancer now, like? Did they hire ye for a case or something?"

"Didn't you get-"

But Mary really was getting herself worked up now, and I couldn't get a word in edgeways.

"It's important that I can reach ye, Lucy! Instead, I wasted half the afternoon trying to track down yer phone number-"

"MARY!" I cut her off, "Did you not get my letter? The one explaining that I'm back with Lockwood and co.? It should've reached you two weeks ago!"

There was a moment of silence, and then the sound of rustling paper as if she were looking through a stack of papers. In the silence, I heard the creaking of pipes and the rush of water and hoped it was Lockwood who'd jumped into the shower because if it were Holly, I'd be waiting for my turn for at least half an hour after this phone call ended. Mary muttered to herself, and I heard another sniffle.

"You're right," she said, her voice soft and cracking. "That was my mistake, I…"

"Mary, why are you calling? Is someone sick? Has Margaret had a miscarriage?"

"No, no… The babe's fine, Benedict gave a full health report when I called them-" she gave a watery giggle- "He was telling all about the first kicks they felt yesterday…"

"What did you need to speak to me about so badly then, Mary?" I interrupted. My sister had a tendency to go off on a tangent, and if what she needed to tell me was important enough to call, I would rather she got to the point.

"…Mam h-has been Ghost Touched…"

I heard the words, but it took a while for them to register. As they did, the blood in my veins seemed to freeze, as if I had been the one who had a too close meeting with a ghost.

"Ghost Touched?" I repeated, my voice rising about half an octave, "What-what happened? Will she be okay?"

A deep sigh and another sniffle on the other end, and when Mary spoke again, it was so softly I could barely hear her.

"…No. Probably not Lucy, she- the doctor's given her a day or two at the most..."

"She's going to- but… How did this happen? Was she out at night, or…" The rest of the question died in my mouth. It was hard to comprehend that my mother, who was so strict about all precautions, who'd even prefer to stay in during the day for fear of ghosts, had been out late enough to get caught by a deadly touch of ectoplasm.

"She was out after the bells toiled," Mary answered after a shuddering inhale, "Agent Jacobs found her, because apparently one of his boys saw what happened while he was doing his rounds-" Mary's voice cracked, and I had to swallow down the lump that lodged itself in my throat at the sound.

"That's- that's awful," I whispered.

"Yeah… Rebecca, Grace and I thought it would be best te call everybody home before she… before she passes away. Do ye think ye could be here by tomorrow?"

I nodded immediately, before remembering Mary wouldn't be able so that through the phone.

"I think I missed the last train going up north for today, but I'll take the first one in the morning, Mary."

"And it won't be a problem with yer work?"

"I doubt it, it's family matters, Lockwood wouldn't ask me to stay."

"Maybe ye should ask him to come too," Mary said after a short pause.

"What? Mary-"

"Him and your other colleagues and take yer gear…"

"My gear?" I repeated. It was an odd request for Mary to make. Despite the fact that I had been pushed into the agency profession as a child, nobody in my family particularly liked seeing me walk around with my equipment. The chains and my rapier made them uneasy, perhaps because it forced them to acknowledge that the Problem still was everywhere despite the fact that they had lost their talents.

"It's a strong ghost, according to Agent Jacobs. It's been seen last night too, by multiple children."

"Can't his kids take it?" I asked, trying to keep my voice level. The fact that that man was still running psychic investigations after the Wythburn Mill incident made my stomach turn, but he was still a respected resident of the small town, and I wasn't looking forward to running one myself either.

"I- Well, it's-" Mary stuttered, "They found Mam near- near the station, Lucy." A cold feeling wound itself around my heart, as if I was experiencing creeping fear even though the sun was still out. I had an idea where she was going with that line of thought and I didn't like it one bit.

"From the description the boy gave… Well, it might have been Da, Lucy..."

I had no memory of how that phone call ended, the next thing I know is that Lockwood and George found me sitting in the armchair next to the phone sometime later, knees drawn up with my forehead resting on them, still clutching the horn. A pounding headache was forming behind my eyes. Whether because of dehydration after all the exercise or because of all the thoughts running through my head, I didn't know. It had been ages since I last thought about my father, and he'd been dead for even longer. All the proper precautions had been taken, and now he was coming back to haunt my family after all? What had we done to deserve that?

"Is everything alright, Luce?" Lockwood asked carefully.

"No," I spoke into my knees. Taking a deep breath, I lifted my head and looked at them. I don't know what the boys had been expecting, red and puffy eyes perhaps, or maybe tear tracks. Either way, my dry eyes seemed to take them by surprise.

"Me ma-" I stopped, realising I'd slipped back into my old accent during the phone call, and tried again. "My mother has been ghost touched."

Both Lockwood and George made appalled sounds and were full of sympathy, telling me how sorry they were, and assuring I could get all the time off I needed. I listened to them verbally trip all over themselves to support me for a while, feeling strangely numb.

"Mary asked me to come home tomorrow," I interrupted them. My voice sounded monotonous to my own ears. "Mam's still alive, if just barely, but she doesn't have long... It might… it might have been my father, who Ghost Touched her."

Lockwood and George exchanged a look.

"Your father?" George asked, "He died a long time ago, right?"

I nodded in response. "When I was five, fell under a train during work. Seems like he came back."

Holly entered the library then, probably looking for us. She was smiling that sweet smile of hers that used to get on my nerves when she first started working for Lockwood and Co., Her dark hair was slightly damp from the shower which immediately made me wonder if there had been more than a few minutes between the end of the phone call and Lockwood and George entering the library.

Her smile slipped off her face when she read the atmosphere of the room though, as if somebody had washed it away. She didn't speak up, allowing us to continue the conversation without asking for an explanation.

"Lockwood," I started softly, "Could we take this on as a case?"

**A/N: Thanks for reading this first chapter! I'm afraid it will be a long time before the second chapter will be uploaded, right now I am working on my bachelor thesis, so the next month and a half I will be writing very little. I hope you enjoyed this chapter anyway, please let me know what you think! **


	2. Chapter 2

Lockwood had accepted to take the case of the ghost who touched my mother before I had even finished explaining what Mary had told me. While I finally took my shower, the others started to get things ready for the case. Within two hours the usual preparations were made. George packed our equipment, Holly made calls to reschedule our planned appointments, and Lockwood went out to get us train tickets to the first train up north for the following morning.

On the way back home he had run into Quill Kipps, who had offered to watch Portland Row while we were gone. Penelope Fittes' comment about the 'vulnerability' of Portland Row was fresh in our minds. In the end Lockwood had passed that duty on to Flo Bones, a relic woman we worked with from time to time. And so the five of us found ourselves at King Cross Station, making our way to the right platform. Nobody spoke as we walked through the crowd. I didn't know whether that was because they were feeling uncomfortable (I certainly was), or because it wasn't even seven am yet, and nobody was awake enough to form coherent sentences.

As we made our way through the station, people went out of their way to avoid us. It was too early for agents to be out under normal circumstances, and our presence made people uneasy. At night agents were respected for providing the only defence against The Problem, in the sunlight nobody wanted to see us. Despite our lack of coordinated uniforms, we were easily recognized as agents by the rapiers hanging form our belts and the kitbags filled to the brim with ghost hunting supplies. Lockwood wanted to be prepared for everything, so we all had multiple lengths of iron chains, about two-dozen canisters of iron fillings each, and a multitude of magnesium flares and salt bombs stuffed in our bags. On top of that, I was also carrying my backpack, with the skull in the jar safely tucked inside.

The skull was active. I could feel the slight psychic pressure it gave off in my temple. If I opened my backpack, I knew greenish Other Light and a repulsive expression would greet me, but by some unspoken spoken agreement with the others – literally, I was the only one who could hear it after all – it had decided to keep its mouth shut as well for once.

The train was still empty when we boarded, so we had plenty of choice where to sit. We claimed a small booth with four chairs facing each other, arranged around one of those little tables attached to the train wall. Kipps had to take the seat across the aisle. He'd have to lean over if he wanted to talk to us, but it was too early for conversation, anyway. In the next few minutes, more and more passengers trickled into our train cart, although people gave our seats wide berth when they recognized the kit in our baggage, stored in the baggage racks above our heads. It was as if we were the passengers of the Vauxhall underground ghost train and coming too close would trap them with us for all eternity.

The only bag I had kept with me was my backpack, which I had put on my lap after sitting down in the window seat. George was sitting across from me, his nose buried in the free newspaper he'd grabbed from one of those stands on the platform. Holly was sitting next to him, looking through some kind of health magazine I didn't bother to read the name of, but both Lockwood and Kipps were leaning back in their seats with their eyes closed, trying to catch some more sleep.

They had the right idea, if you asked me. We had gotten up at half past five to make sure we were able to catch the first train up north, which left at seven. We needed the time to give our kit a final check, have a decent breakfast and get to King Cross Station in time. For agents, that is practically the middle of the night still, and I had caught very little sleep that night in the first place. Each time I closed my eyes, I heard Mary's soft stutter as she told me Mam had been Ghost Touched, and I was left wondering how it was possible that my mother, the woman who hardly even went outside if it was _cloudy,_ was at the station late enough to get Ghost Touched. It just didn't make sense. So when the train left the station, I leant against the window and closed my eyes as well.

Do you know that weird state when you take a nap, when you're not quite awake but still sort of aware of what's happening around you? That's what I experienced during the first part of our journey. My thoughts drifted until I was half dreaming, but I could vaguely hear the voices of my friends filter through my clouded mind. I picked up on loose fragments mostly—Kipps complaining about being unable to sleep in a moving train, Holly asking how long we had to get to the other platform when we would transfer trains in Newcastle, that sort of thing—but George's voice shook me back into alertness about an hour later.

"Is Lucy okay though? Knowing your mother is going to pass away must be awful," he said. His voice was soft, probably because he was trying not to wake me up, but I was alert immediately. I shifted a little in my seat, fighting the urge to open my eyes, and kept listening.

"She must feel terrible," Holly replied in a whisper. "She was so quiet yesterday, I think she may be in shock." The empathy in her voice made me feel weird. I wasn't feeling terrible at all. Tired, yes. Perhaps worried about what was going to happen when I saw my sisters again, but that had nothing to do with the current situation. I always dreaded going to my hometown.

"You lose a lot, when your parents pass away…" I almost jumped at the sudden sound of Lockwood's voice. I hadn't realized he was awake. The others seemed surprised as well, and there was some uncomfortable shuffling, and somebody cleared their throat awkwardly.

Lockwood's voice was soft when he continued speaking. "It's the small things. Knowing you'll never be able to have tea and biscuits with them again. That your mum won't be there to bake your birthday cakes anymore-"

"My mum never did that." I took a deep breath and opened my eyes, taking in my friends' surprised faces. "My sisters did. Mam didn't want to make time for such things." Kipps got up from his chair and walked closer to our seats so we wouldn't have to shout across the aisle. "Isn't that a bit of a harsh conclusion?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.

I thought back to the countless times I came home after a long night with Jacobs, to find someone waiting in the kitchen with a teapot on a light. Usually it was Rebecca or Grace, who'd curl up in the rocking chair with a book in an effort to stay awake until I had made it back safely. Sometimes Mary took the job instead, and there were a few instances when I'd just started working for Jacobs when it was Margaret, Alice or Judith, before they moved out. As far as I could recall, Mam hadn't waited up for me once.

"Is it?" I asked. "It was always one of the twins who waited up for me with a cup of tea after a night of work. Mary usually cooked, and we all took turns doing the laundry. Mam did enough laundry for work she used to say. I'm just saying she's no Mrs Cubbins."

I adjusted the backpack on my lap, avoiding meeting my friends' eyes. The skull was still giving off a steady thrum of psychic energy, but it was soft and strangely comforting. Not that I'd ever tell the thing that.

"What kind of work does your mother do?" Holly asked.

"She's a washerwoman," I replied. "Does the laundry for the two hotels in town."

"I see…" Holly seemed unsure on what to say now, and for a moment an awkward silence fell.

Quill, who was still standing next to Lockwood, broke it after a moment had passed.

"Was that enough to feed…" he paused to do a mental calculation, "nine people?"

"Eight people, she took up the extra job after my father died. But it wasn't. The moment she legally could, she took me to agent Jacobs so I could be apprenticed."

"That would be when you turned eight, right?" Holly asked, carefully flattening her skirt over her legs. I was about to reply when Kipps cut in.

"But you don't get paid significantly at that age, unless you do a full-time apprenticeship-" He broke himself off and stared at me with wide eyes. "Were you pulled out of school?"

Suddenly it was impossible to meet anyone's eyes, so I kept my gaze trained on the window. The landscape flitted past in a blur, as if somebody had smeared out a wet oil painting, but in the reflection of the glass, I could see the others' faces. Lockwood's was set in a deep frown, George was glaring at Kipps, and Holly and Kipps exchanged an awkward look.

"It's not that big of a deal," I tried, not turning around. Speaking to their reflections was easier. "There are a lot of kids who stop school before the assessment tests if they become agents-"

"Most still get tutoring though." Kipps interrupted. Holly shook her head to try to get him to shut up, but he ignored her. "Did you?"

I tightened my grip on the backpack, pulling the canvas tightly around the ghost jar (which made the skull up its activity in a moment of silent protest) and tried to fight down the blush of shame. "No."

Lockwood saved me from the embarrassment of having to elaborate on the subject of my education, by clumsily changing the subject.

"How many sisters do you have exactly, Luce?" he asked

I turned back to face him, eager to divert the attention to this line of conversation.

"Six," I replied. "I'm the youngest. From young to old, there's Mary, then the twins Grace and Rebecca, Alice, Judith and lastly Margaret, who's about twelve years older than me."

"Large family," George remarked.

"You should've seen the fights for the bathroom in the mornings," I joked. This got a chuckle out of the others, and for the first time that morning, some of the tension seemed to fall away. "Of course, there are their families as well. Gatherings are busy occasions."

We spent some time discussing my sisters, and slowly I forgot about the tension I felt earlier. The rest of the four-hour journey flew by, and soon after our transfer in Newcastle, the sloping grain fields around my hometown came into view.

It took us a while to gather our luggage—kitbags and rapiers weren't exactly easy to manoeuvre inside a train—but soon we got off the train and were standing on the small platform of my hometown's station.

Saying Whitton on Dean had a station was almost overselling it. There were two platforms covered by corrugated iron and minimal brickwork, which meant that there was always a draught whistling through the station. The station hall, if you could call it that, was barely 30 feet by 30 feet, and only contained a few lockers, a kiosk selling sandwiches and the local newspaper, and of course the office of the stationmaster. Not that a bigger station was necessary. The trains going in each direction only stopped here once an hour, and the only other traffic it got was the intercity from Newcastle to Edinburgh, which only came through.

The porter on this side of the station quickly killed his cigarette and made his way towards us. I recognised the young man—I think he lived a few streets from my old house—but couldn't remember his name at the moment.

"Carlyle and friends?" He asked, his voice sounding a little hoarse.

Lockwood bristled a little next to me at the way the porter addressed us. I could hear Quill snicker softly.

"That's us," I confirmed, trying not to laugh at Lockwood's reaction.

"Leave yer luggage to me, Morley's waiting for you in the car park."

"Peter's waiting for us?" I asked. I had met Peter Morley when I first started out at agent Jacob's. He was about five years older than me, and he'd look out for us younger kids when we first came along on cases. He had lost his talents young—they faded soon after he turned seventeen—and moved to Newcastle soon after to build a life there. He was also currently dating Grace.

"I just said that, didn't I?" The porter asked irritably. I nodded and set down the kitbag I was carrying, motioning for the others to do the same. All of us held on to our rapiers, Kipps fished his goggles out of his kitbag before handing it over, and I kept my backpack strapped to my back.

The porter raised an eyebrow, drawing my attention to the little scar above it. Suddenly I remembered his name again. It was Samuel. He was the older boy who'd fallen against the doorpost at school when I was six.

"I can handle all of it, you know," he drawled.

"Oh, we don't doubt that," Holly said. She smiled up at him kindly before I had the chance to tell him to mind his own business. "But we'd like to keep the rest with us." She batted her eyelashes for extra effect, and Samuel sighed.

"Whatever," he muttered, and he started to load our luggage on to his cart. "You'll be the ones folded up in that little car of Morley's."

Peter Morley immediately caught our attention when we walked to the car park. If you were to describe Kipps' hair as ginger, Peter's was firetruck red, and he had so many freckles they seemed to melt together into rusty patches. Now that he wasn't an agent anymore, he'd discovered his fondness for bright colours, and something about him just radiated cheer and kindness. I could see why my sister had fallen in love with him.

He pulled me into a tight hug when we reached him.

"I'm so sorry, Lu," he whispered before quickly releasing me. He knew I wasn't one for physical contact most of the time. "You must be Lockwood and Co!" He said after turning his attention to the others. "I must confess I thought there were only four of you"

"Ah yes, Kipps is a recent addition to the company," I explained.

"Consultant," Kipps corrected me.

"Same thing. This is Anthony Lockwood, George Cubbins, Holly Munro and lastly Quill Kipps." I introduced my friends. Peter raised his hand in greeting.

"And guys, this is Peter Morley, a family friend. He was part of Agent Jacob's team when I first joined."

"And Lucy's soon to be brother-in-law," Peter added.

I whirled around to stare at him. "When did _that_ happen?" I asked him. Peter tilted his head in genuine confusion.

"Last month?" the statement came out as a question. "I proposed on our anniversary. Didn't Grace write to you about it? She said she would."

So much for being in the loop.

"I haven't had a letter from her since she responded to my change of address…"

"Maybe it got lost in the mail? Wouldn't be the first time." Peter suggested, and I gave a shrug in response.

"Maybe…" I muttered, casting a quick glance at the others. They watching us awkwardly, waiting for us to finish the conversation.

"Anyway, I'll be driving your friends to your Mam's house," Peter said, "but I think it's best I drop you off at the clinic immediately. Mrs Carlyle's in a bad way."

My stomach dropped at the news, and I gave a shallow nod.

"Let's go…"

**A/N: Chapter 2! I hope you enjoyed reading this. I'll try to get another chapter or two out before I go on vacation, but I'm not making promises. Let me know what you thought in a comment!**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Warnings: Description of a hospital environment, death of a family member. Starts after the asterisk **

Samuel wasn't kidding when he told us we would be folded up in Peter's car. It wasn't as small as he had made it sound, but as there were six of us, and we all had our rapiers, so it was a tight fit. We left part of our luggage with the porter so Peter could drop us off and go back for it. We would all be squeezed together like sardines if we tried to take everything in one ride.

Peter had placed Lockwood in the passenger seat, ("I won't have that tree block my view," he'd said) Kipps in the middle with George on his left. I ended up on Holly's lap on his right side. There were a lot of ways to describe our situation, but comfortable wasn't one of them.

"I'm sorry," Peter apologised for the second time as he pulled out of the small car park, "at least it won't be long."

"I should have stayed behind to watch Portland Row," Kipps complained when Peter took a sharp turn at the roundabout. He was squashed against Holly and me when George careened over because of the sudden change of direction.

"Oh, come on, it's not that bad is it?" Lockwood asked with a grin, looking back at us from the front seat.

"Want to sit in the back with us plebs next time, Lockwood?" George shot back.

"Oh, I think I'm fine here."

"You'll all have a bit more room soon," Peter promised. He took another turn onto the main street of town. "We'll be at the Surgery in a few minutes." The main road led to and around the town square which formed the heart of Whitton on Dean. Shops lined the square; a bakery greengrocer and a little flower shop stood proudly on the south side, as always bustling with activity. The supermarket where Mary used to work was located on the other side of the square, creating a bit of a divide between the people getting their groceries there versus those going to the individual shops.

In the middle of the square was a small monument, visible from the road. It was a small column made out of grey stone, about 8 feet tall. Certain parts of it glimmered in the sunlight because of the bronze plaques attached to the stone. Each plaque carried the names of town kids who had fallen during ghost hunts. Some were less shiny than others, as the sun and rain had dulled the metal over time, creating a natural timeline for the deaths of the children. I had been there when five of the shiniest plaques had been placed, and I didn't need to come closer to know what names were engraved on them.

"Are there new names on there?" I asked Peter. It had been over two-and-a-half years since the Wythburn Mill incident and there were bound to have been more incidents involving Visitors. Maybe even deaths.

"Not as far as I know," Peter replied. He didn't have to ask me to clarify what I was looking at. "There've been a lot of near misses the past few years, and then there was the incident with a 10-year-old getting Ghost Touched while out a few months back. Jacobs administered the required adrenaline shot immediately though. The kid was fine when DEPRAC Newcastle send me over to do the follow up check."

Peter took a right turn and drove into the street where the medical centre was located. You could see the white-fronted building from this direction. Large glass doors gave a glimpse into the reception hall, and the words Whitton Surgery were emblazoned on a large sign above the doors. The sign was the only hint that it was a medical facility though. The surgery provided only the basics of medical care. There were two General practitioners offices in the building, along with a small pharmacy to keep the town's people stocked on their medication. For anything more complicated than minor Ghost Touch or a broken bone, you would need to go to a hospital in the city.

Peter stopped the car in front of the entrance, and I got out quickly. Holly rubbed her thighs with a grimace when she thought I wasn't looking, but I couldn't blame her. I was heavier than she was but for convenience's sake I'd been the one sitting on her lap, which couldn't have been very comfortable for her either. I grabbed my backpack from its place between Holly's feet and swung it over my shoulder.

Peter lowered his window after I closed the car door, and I leant in to talk to him.

"I'll take your friends to your Mam's house and help them get settled. You can probably get a ride with one of your sisters, but if you need me to pick you up later, ask the secretary to call your house."

"Will do," I replied, adjusting the straps of my backpack and straightened up. "Thank you for doing this Peter."

"It's no problem, Lu. Keep your head up in there,"

I waited for the car to disappear down the street before I walked to the sliding doors and entered the medical centre. The secretary, a kind woman with large cat-eye glasses, directed me down the hall towards the room where Mam was. Even without her instructions I would have found the room easily. Outside the door, a girl was playing an improvised game of hide and seek with her younger cousin, hiding underneath the uncomfortable plastic chairs and behind the little water fountain.

Their fathers were sitting on afore mentioned chairs, murmuring amongst themselves. Whatever they were discussing was taking up most off their attention, and they only looked up when a child wandered too far into the hallway for their comfort. It was one of the kids who noticed me first.

"Daa, Daa look! Aunty Lu!" The little girl didn't wait for her father to acknowledge her outcry, but ran straight into my legs, wrapping her small arms around them.

"Hello Isabelle," I greeted her, petting her head affectionately.

Isabelle was four years old, dark-haired and wide eyed, and a lot bolder than either of her parents, my oldest sister Margaret and her husband Benedict. I had only seen her a handful of times since she was born, but for some reason she'd taken a liking to me. Her cousin Oliver was a lot less brave and went to hide with his father as I approached with the little girl tugging me along by the skirt.

I exchanged the standard greetings with Benedict and Alice's husband Richard and gave Oliver a little wave when I caught him staring up at me. He shrank back behind Richard's legs in response.

"I'm sorry about that," Richard said, putting a large hand on his sons shoulder, "He's always a bit shy and today is weird for him, what with the hospital environment and his mum and aunts all being stressed."

"That's okay," I replied. "I realise this must all be very stressful. Is everybody in there with Mam?"

Benedict nodded. "They are, and if I were you, I'd go in soon too. It's not looking good Lucy."

"Yeah, I've heard," I sighed, straightening my posture. "Nice to see you both again, and I'm happy to meet you finally, Oliver," I said before turning to the door. It was a rather inconspicuous door, a wooden thing with a tiny panelled window that didn't actually show much of the room behind it. I put my hand on the handle and hesitated.

The first rule of ghost hunting is not to hesitate on the threshold. Hesitation allows fear to sneak up on you and settle in. Letting yourself waver will make you want to turn tail and run. It had been ages since I last hesitated during a job, but somehow the prospect of pushing open that simple door was more daunting than entering a haunted house. It had been over half a year since I last saw my Mam and sisters. And truth be told, it would've been fine with me if it were another half year before we met up again. Biting down the hesitation, I grasped the handle tighter, took a deep breath and-

"_Are you going in or not?" _A voice from behind me sneered. I jumped and had already whirled around -hand on my rapier- when I realised the voice had come from my backpack.

"Everything alright, Lucy?" Richard asked, giving me a worried look.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine." I shot him a flustered smile which I hoped was reassuring and turned back to the door. "Don't scare me like that," I hissed under my breath.

"_We would've been standing here all day if it weren't for me," _the skull in the jar replied smugly. _"So, you're welcome." _

I huffed and jabbed my elbow into the backpack. "Shut up, what if Isabelle or Oliver heard you?"

"_Oh, don't worry about those kiddies. Deaf as doornails, they are." _

*Without dignifying the skull with another response, I entered the hospital room. Two things hit me as I walked in. The first thing was the wall of heat trapped in the room, which made me break out in sweat almost immediately. The medical staff had done everything they could to keep the room hot, as to provide my mother with a comfortable environment. They had turned on the radiator to its highest setting, any gap there might have been at the window wassealed off, and a space heater stood next to the bed. The second thing to hit me was the collective weight of seven pairs of eyes landing on my shoulders as their attention turned to me. The silence of paused conversation pressed down on me as I closed the door behind me and walked further into the room.

Mam was in a very bad condition. If I had to guess, I'd say the Ghost Touch had started at her lower arms, or perhaps her hands. They were visible on top of the thick layer of blankets and duvets and had swollen to an even larger size than they used to be. A blue tint made its way up her skin and disappeared underneath the short sleeves of the white night dress she was wearing. The sleeves were pulled tight around her upper arms, and the seams cut into them, making them look like stuffed sausages. Blue peeked out from underneath the collar of the nightdress as well, creeping up towards her throat as if trying to chase away the paleness of the rest of her skin.

My stomach dropped with that first look I got at my mother. It was enough for me to realise she would pass away within the hour.

"Hey," I said softly. Breaking the silence that had fallen over the room felt wrong, but I felt like nobody would start talking unless I did. In the end, I still made my way to the bed in silence. It was like a spell had fallen over the room. My sisters watched me from the circle they'd formed around the large hospital bed, and I tried not to pay attention to them. I squeezed through the gap in between the chairs Rebecca and Grace were sitting on. The twins were side by side, as they always did when we were gathered. Some things never changed.

I gently touched Mam's right hand when I had reached her. Her skin was cold and clammy, and I could feel the tremors running through her body underneath my fingers. Mam slowly reached up towards my face, and I leant forwards so she wouldn't have to reach up so far. Her hand was shaking as she brushed her fingers over my cheek in an uncharacteristically soft gesture. Then she grabbed a lock of my hair.

"Lucy Joan Carlyle," she said, in a voice that lacked the angry strength I knew she longed to put behind it, "What the hell have you done to your hair?"

And just like that, the spell had been broken. I jerked back, trying to reel in the indignation and defiance that immediately flared up before they showed on my face. Over half a year since I had last seen her, and the first thing she said was a comment about my hair? The woman was on her deathbed, for heaven's sake!

"An incident at work," I fibbed through my teeth. "Lockwood used a new type of salt bomb and stuff got in our hair. The stuff worked like bleach." The truth was that I had been left with the white locks after going to the Other Side in Aldbury Castle, but I was not about to tell my family that. My sisters already had their doubts about my job as an agent, messing around with the occult was unlikely to endear it to them.

"A salt bomb?" Judith asked, scepticism clear in her voice. While the contact I had with all my sisters was strained at best, Judith was the one sister I didn't get along with at all. She was glaring at me from underneath her bangs, and I would have snapped at her if we weren't sitting around the bed of our dying mother.

"It was," I confirmed. "It will grow out, I'm sure."

"I'll go get another chair," Mary announced, and before anybody could say something in response, she fled the room. I stared after her as she dashed into the hallway, wishing I could go after her and join Isabelle and Oliver in their game of hide and seek.

"_Well… with a family like that, who needs enemies?"_ The only thing that stopped me from jumping at the sudden intrusion of the psychic silence was months of practising. I took Mary's now vacant chair and let the backpack fall between my feet unceremoniously. The skull let out a sound of protest, but I didn't pay it any more attention.

When Mary returned, the conversation picked up again. It seemed like my mother had accepted she was going to pass away, and she told us about her wishes for her funeral in a hoarse voice. Margaret, ever the organised secretary, was writing down everything in Mam said in a moleskin notebook. The rest of us thought of questions we needed to have Mam answer.

Ever since the problem started, death started playing a bigger part in society. People made sure the dying got everything they wished for, and testaments and last wills were followed to the letter. There were harsh legal consequences for cheating testaments and contracts, as there was always a possibility that it would enrage a ghost and put the general population in danger. If you provided the dead with everything they needed or wanted finished, they would not have a reason to return as ghosts, was the thought. I wasn't sure whether things actually worked like that, but nobody wanted to take the risk, so we listened to our mother closely.

As time passed, it became clear that Mam was reaching the end of her strength. The blue had spread across her neck and now creeped up her cheeks; the skin swelling in its wake. Her voice was growing ever more squeezed, and despite the high temperature in the room, she shivered almost violently. Her breathing grew laboured, and for the first time since I entered the room, I could read the panic in her eyes. Perhaps she wasn't as accepting of her upcoming death as I had previously assumed.

As one, my sisters and I got up and moved closer. Seven pairs of hands searched for a spot on Mam's cold skin, and Margaret smoothed down her greying hair.

"It's okay," she whispered, but her voice cracked and her lower lip trembled. A glance cast across my sisters' faces told me they weren't doing much better, and my stomach clenched with guilt. _I _wasn't near tears.

My mother addressed all of us individually with her last words. She encouraged Margaret to enjoy her pregnancy, wished Judith and Alice success in their careers, and fervently apologised to Rebecca for her reaction when she had first come out as gay. Rebecca promptly started to cry. Grace tried to console her twin, but she was tearing up as well as Mam told us she loved all of us. After a last expression of pride for Grace and Mary, Mam addressed me.

"Lucy," she whispered, "It's underneath…" she never finished the sentence. At least, not out loud. Her words ended in a sigh and she closed her eyes.

Alice put her fingers to Mam's neck, gently pressing her fingers against the spot where a major artery was supposed to pulse with the beating of the heart. Even before she let out the choked sob, I knew there was no pulse there. Again it hit me how elusive death can be. Just like that, my mother was gone. Her last words echoed in my inner ear.

"… _the mattress…"_

**A/N: Chapter 3! The first look at Lucy's hometown and her family. Let me know what you think! I hope I'll be able to post another chapter before going on vacation next Friday, but I'm afraid I can't promise anything. Thanks for reading!**


	4. Chapter 4

After arriving at my old house, I had intended to sleep, a lot. The day had been exhausting. After Mam passed away, there had been a frenzy of activity. None of us wanted to stay idle, so we got a move on and started with the preparations for the funeral. Judith called in a nurse so a medical certificate could be made, and Mary decided she'd go register Mam's passing at the local registry office immediately when it was done.

At the end of the afternoon, I joined Rebecca in her Mini and we drove back to the cottage in silence. Rebecca fled upstairs immediately, but my friends were waiting for me in the small living room. They offered tea and sympathy and Holly pulled me into a hug that lasted well over a minute. I couldn't be bothered to pull away.

After a quick meal (courtesy of George) and a discussion about who would sleep in which room when Judith came back from setting up an appointment with Mam's solicitor, I'd gone up to the room I used to share with Mary. I collapsed into my old bed, and fell asleep within moments.

It didn't last long though. My sleep was plagued with nightmares about Ghost Touch and hospital rooms that woke me up multiple times. The last nightmare I had was about the incident at the Wythburn Mill, and I woke up from it with a violent start. As I opened my eyes, soft sunlight already shone through the faded curtains that hung in front of the window. For a moment I was completely disoriented, and it felt like the Mill had been just yesterday.

Yawning, I got out of bed and walked to the old wardrobe I shared with Mary. I was convinced I needed to get ready to go face Agent Jacobs. But when I pulled the wardrobe open, I discovered it was mostly empty. Some of Mary's clothes were still there, and I spotted a few shirts and jumpers I had long since grown out of, but the only other things that filled the space were tiny dust bunnies.

I let the doors fall shut again and spun around, trying to make sense of my surroundings. My eyes fell on the two overnight bags shoved against the little shared desk. Were those mine? How had I not noticed them earlier? I nearly tripped over a black skirt lying on the ground and the curse that escaped me woke up my roommate.

"Lucy?" The girl who sat up in bed and used the back of her hand to rub sleep out of her eye, was most definitely not my sister. Her hair was a beautiful dark colour that didn't match any of us Carlyle girls, and her skin tone was darker than any of us could even hope to achieve, no matter how much we tanned. I blinked, once, twice, to clear my mind.

It took me a moment, but slowly yesterday's events came back to me. "Sorry, Holly," I mumbled. "For a moment I just-" I cut myself off, unable to explain I'd been convinced I was that young girl who planned to run away from home again. I was back in Whitton on Dean because Mam had passed away yesterday. The funeral would take place tomorrow, and I was sleeping in my old room with Holly, a colleague from Lockwood and co. Perhaps even a friend.

"Never mind, I'm sorry for waking you up, Hol. Let's go back to sleep for a while…" I climbed back into bed and turned my back to her, staring at the beige wallpaper. It was starting to peel a little along the edges. Holly sighed deeply, but didn't speak up. I could hear her shift under the covers, and soon her breathing evened out. Despite trying, I couldn't fall back asleep myself. I changed positions a couple times, watched the intensity of the sunlight pouring through the curtains grow stronger, and listened to the psychic static of the skull in the jar. I had pushed the thing beneath the bed as far as it would go so it would be out of our way. We couldn't leave it sitting out in the open with my sisters staying here too, but Holly didn't want to have it ogle us. And who could blame her?

Eventually I decided to get up and get dressed. Sleep wouldn't come again and staring at wall was not going to make me feel any more rested. I moved quietly this time, as not to wake up Holly again. I snuck out of my room and walked across the landing, past the doors to the bathroom and the twins' old bedroom. Lockwood, George and Kipps were probably fast asleep in there. Rebecca and Judith had dug an old air mattress from the tiny storage area in the attic, so that all boys had a comfortable place to rest. We didn't want a repeat of the Old Sun Inn incident.

If it were up to me, I would have let them sleep in the attic. It used to be an open floor, but had been divided into a few small sections with plasterboards some time before I was born. There were three semi-private sleeping areas, and a small washbasin with a mirror. The rest of the space was used as a storeroom for Mam to dump old furniture and other unused items in. Lockwood, George and Quill would've had more privacy up there, but Judith had insisted on sleeping in her own bed, as she had shared the attic with Margaret and Alice when she still lived at home. Rebecca decided to take Alice's old bed so that none of the boys would have to share with Holly and me.

Rebecca was already in the kitchen when I came downstairs, putting slices of bread into the ancient toaster on the laminate countertop.

"Morning Lucy," she greeted me when I walked into the kitchen. Her voice was hoarse and thick, and when she turned around, my gaze was drawn to her red-rimmed eyes and messy hair. Obviously her day hadn't started out great either.

"Hey Rebecca," I returned the greeting. "Do you want help? I'm not sure when the others will be down, but they'd all appreciate breakfast." She gave a quick nod, wiping the strand of hair that had escaped her ponytail behind her ear.

"Could you set the table?" She asked. The strand of hair slid from her ear again, and with an agitated movement she pulled out the hairband and redid the ponytail.

I nodded in reply to her question and got to work. It felt nice to be busy. Recalling the locations of the plates and cutlery allowed me to focus on something besides the heavy atmosphere in the house and my sister's sadness. The kitchen was bigger than the one at Portland Row, but somehow it felt more crowded. I spent a lot of time trying to avoid colliding with Rebecca as she bustled around while fixing the toast. I placed jam and marmalade on the table while Rebecca loaded the toaster again. Every now and then my sister let out a deep sigh.

After about 15 minutes Judith joined us, already immaculately dressed up. Her blouse was pristine and she had her hair pulled up into a tight bun. She greeted us both with a short nod and started buttering a slice of toast for herself. Another 10 minutes later Holly came downstairs as well, and Rebecca and I decided to sit down and eat something too. We ate our breakfast in silence.

"When do we need to be at the solicitor?" I asked when I had nearly finished my toast with jam.

"Half past 8," was Judith's short reply. She got up and walked to the fridge, frowned at the limited selection of dairy before selecting the half empty carton of whole milk and pouring herself a glass. "Where are your friends?"

I gave a small shrug. "Still asleep, I suppose." Holly nodded in agreement.

"What? It's a quarter to 8!" Judith sounded scandalised that anybody would even consider sleeping in past seven in the morning, and for a moment I expected her to march upstairs and wake them up herself.

"Well, they don't need to come along, do they?" I remarked. The comment earned me a glare, but I was good at ignoring those.

Lockwood, Kipps and George stumbled into the kitchen around 8, when Holly and I were clearing up. Luckily, all of them were fully dressed. I doubt my sisters would've appreciated a glimpse of George in his baggy pyjamas anymore than I did. I waited until they too had eaten something (while my sisters threw agitated glances at the clock that was steadily ticking away the time remaining before we had o leave) and then cleared my throat. "I want to go to the station tonight."

My friends simply nodded, although George and Lockwood did give me a somewhat worried look. My sisters however, reacted like I just told them I was going to steal the crown jewels. Apparently Mary hadn't consulted our other sisters before deciding to ask me to look into the case in our professional capacity.

"You can't!" Rebecca gasped while Judith glowered at me. "It's way too dangerous!" The glass she held was shaking slightly, and she quickly put it into the dishwasher so she couldn't drop it by accident.

"Just let Jacobs' kids handle this," Judith agreed with her.

"Mary asked us to investigate this," I protested, crossing my arms in front of my chest. I wouldn't let them question my decision. "What did you think the equipmentis for? And besides, if agent Jacobs were to handle this, we'd probably have more deaths on our hands." Both Rebecca and Judith flinched at that, but neither opened their mouths to argue. They knew I wouldn't change my opinion on Jacobs any time soon.

"And what if it really is dad?" Rebecca asked after a moment of silence. I shrugged, trying not to pay my friends - who were watching us as if they were spectators at a tennis match – any attention. They had wisely decided not to get mixed up in this particular conversation. George was still eating his toast, chewing speculatively as his eyes flicked from me to my sisters.

"I was barely five when he passed away, Becca," I pointed out. Kipps eyes widened with this new titbit of information, but I pointedly ignored his questioning look. "I barely remember him in the first place-" and what I did remember wasn't pleasant "-so I doubt it will be an issue."

"We don't have time to argue about this, we need to go if we want to be at the solicitor on time," Judith interrupted. "You go on your dumb little expedition tonight, but don't come crying to us when things inevitably go wrong." With that she got up and walked out of the kitchen. After a moment of hesitation, Rebecca followed.

* * *

**A/N: This is a little bit of a filler chapter, but the chapter that it was originally a part of got a lot longer than I expected, so I decided to split it up. I'll try to get the next part up soon, before Uni takes over my time again. I hope you enjoyed reading, let me know what you think!**


	5. Chapter 5

"So this Jacobs fellow was your former supervisor?" Quill asked as we walked down the sunlit street that lead to Jacobs' office. We had met up in the town-square after I finished the appointment at the solicitor – which had been a two hour-long nightmare of reading through legal documents and signing my name about a 100 times – and the atmosphere during the entire walk so far had been awkward.

"Yeah, before I left for London after my old team-…" I faltered, but Quill didn't push further.

"You don't have to tell me, but I assume Tony knows what happened?" He took off his jacket and hung it over his arm. I had done the same a little earlier, because the weather was unusually warm for this time of year. I nodded in response to his question

"Then why not take him?" It was a fair question, and I knew the others were probably wondering about it too. The announcement I wanted to visit Jacobs had shocked them more than that I wanted to start the case tonight. Lockwood and George knew about my history with the man, and both of them understood I'd rather not go anywhere near him. But it was one of his kids that found Mam, so he likely had useful information.

"I don't… Jacobs isn't one to fall for charm," it sounded weak, even to me. Quill probably had suspicions about my real reasoning too, but he didn't call me out on the fib. "And he used to be a Fittes agent as well," I added quickly.

Quill rolled his eyes. "I've basically been excommunicated. I will hardly get sympathy from him, if it even comes up."

"Oh, don't be dramatic, I bet he's in the same boat. I doubt he would have ended up in a small northern town if he left the agency on good terms."

Nerves fluttered in my stomach when we arrived on the doorstep of Jacobs' rooms, and I had half a mind to turn around and make a run for it. Of course I didn't get the chance. After checking the address, Quill rang the bell. A small girl opened the door. If I were to estimate her age, I'd put her at seven, but she had to be older than that to start a traineeship as an agent. Her long blonde hair was pulled back into two simple braids, and she was wearing a mustard-coloured jacket over a simple black dress and leggings.

"Huh, so this is where you picked up your fashion sense," Quill muttered. I jabbed him in the side with an elbow.

"Hello, eh…" I wrecked my brain for the girl's name. I was convinced I'd seen her around before I left for London, but it had been two years and I couldn't remember her name for the life of me. The girl just stared at me with wide blue eyes that shone as if somebody had pointed a spotlight on her face. She was starting to make me feel uncomfortable.

"Hello, we're here to talk to Agent Jacobs, could you get him for us, little lady?" Quill took over from me. He flashed her a kind grin, and I watched in surprise as a hint of red crept up the little girl's cheeks. She spun on her heel and skipped down the hallway, braids dancing behind her.

"What?" Quill asked when I turned to him and raised an eyebrow. "Tony isn't the only one who can be charming, you know?"

Together we watched as the girl knocked on the door to Jacobs study once before yelling: "Mr Jacobs! The runaway girl is at the door!"

A few seconds passed before the girl moved back a little and the door opened. I don't know what I had been expecting, but coming face to face with my former supervisor caught me off guard either way. At first glance he hadn't changed much at all. He still stood tall in his old fashioned suit, his nose was still hooked and he still had a thick, bushy beard. The look he sent me -while not quite a glower or a glare- wasn't friendly, and suddenly I felt like I was fourteen all over again. When he came closer however, I could see that the past few years _had_ changed him, even if the changes were subtle. His beard was streaked with silver hair now, and his skin looked even ashier than it had when I worked for him. The dark bags underneath his eyes didn't do much to make him look younger either.

"Good morning, miss Carlyle," he said, "I'm sorry about your mother." Of all the things I'd expected to happen when I met Jacobs again, I hadn't expected detached politeness.

"Thank you," I managed after a moment.

"Please come further," Jacobs said before turning around and walking back in the direction of his office. "Emma, could you ask Daniel to put on some water for tea?" he asked the little girl who was watching us from the doorway to the kitchen. Those big, shiny eyes of hers were resting on Quill, and the blush returned to her face when he gave her a small wave. She quickly ducked out of view.

I nudged Quill in the side. "Seems like you've got an admirer, Kipps."

"Whatever Carlyle," Quill replied with a roll of his eyes.

We followed Jacobs into the office, where he pulled out two chairs and placed them in front of his oak desk. When I worked for Jacobs, this room was off limits to me. Us kids kept to the living area and the kitchen, or slept in one of the empty bedrooms upstairs after a long night. Jacobs tended to stay in the office where he kept the books and received clients. The room sure differed from the sitting room in Portland Row though. Where our sitting room had an eccentric charm because of the tribal items, Jacobs had tried to create a professional atmosphere. He had a large hardwood desk with a comfortable office chair behind it, and a filing cabinet stood against the sidewall. Two dark brown bookcases filled with literature on Visitors and multiple editions of the Fittes Manual filled up the additional space. There were no silver glass cases with artefacts or trophies, the only visible decoration in the room being an antique Italian Rapier, mounted to the wall behind the desk.

The mismatched he pulled out for me and Quill slightly undermined the effect, as they looked like they had come from a secondhand shop. Quill and I sat down. Jacobs offered Quill his callused hand. "We haven't been introduced yet. I'm Thomas Jacobs."

"Quill Kipps," Quill replied. "I'm a consultant for Lockwood and Co."

Jacobs looked him over with interest. "Consultant? I thought you'd be a supervisor."

"Used to be, at Fittes," Quill replied with a shrug of his bony shoulders.

"Lockwood and Co doesn't work with supervisors," I added, my voice a lot sharper than I had intended.

A beat of silence in which Quill raised an eyebrow at me, and I cursed myself for my hostile tone. It wouldn't do to antagonise him before we even got any information out of him. Jacobs seemed to take the comment in stride though.

"Fair enough," he muttered under his breath. He walked around the desk and sat down I the office chair, folding his hands together on the desktop in an effort to get his professional air back. "How can I help you today?"

I opened my mouth to speak, but couldn't form words. Being here had thrown me off more than I expected. Sitting on that uncomfortable dining chair in front of the large desk made me feel small and silly, more like an unwitting client who came beg for help than the strong agent I really was. I was about to try again when a soft knock sounded.

"Come on in," Jacobs called. The door opened slowly, nudged open by a small foot. Emma came shuffling in, carrying a tray with a simple tea set and a small plate of biscuits. She had to hoist the tray up high to shove it onto the desk, and with another glance at Kipps, she rushed out of the room. The door didn't slam as she pulled it shut behind her, but the click of the latch bolt falling into the lock was just as definite. We wouldn't be interrupted again.

This time Quill took the lead.

"Lockwood and Co wants to take the case," he stated. He spoke in a clear voice, and his tone made it clear that this was a fact and he wouldn't be swayed, but Jacobs still raised an eyebrow. "The case? Of the Visitor that Ghost Touched Mrs Carlyle?"

"Yes."

"I do not see what that has to do with a London based agency. To my knowledge you are here to pay your respects to Mrs Carlyle." The simple dismissal twisted something in my gut, and I wanted to tell him where he could stick his 'knowledge', but Quill spoke faster again. "The family asked us to investigate. We'd like to know what you can tell us about the circumstances of the incident?"

Jacobs stayed quiet for a moment, his eyebrows furrowing the slightest bit. When he spoke, he was reluctant, as if he didn't want to give us the information he had. "We were doing our rounds of the public spaces. Daniel, Thomas and Sophie found Mrs Carlyle on the steps to the entrance of the station."

"On the steps?" I repeated. Jacobs nodded and reached for his tea while I tried to make sense of the new information.

The fact that Mam had been anywhere near the station was odd in the first place, as it was far out of the way from her route home. She went straight from either one of the hotels back to the cottage without detours or distractions. She had gone far out of her way to go to the station, after the last trains of the day had left, and been attacked on the steps. I couldn't make any sense of it. I had always thought Mam was a creature of habit, but maybe she had changed since I left. Did I really know my family anymore?

"According to Daniel a faint, possibly male figure hovered above her." Jacobs continued. His voice shook me out of my thoughts and I glanced up as he took a sip of his tea.

Quill waited a moment for me to continue questioning Jacobs and nudged my calf with his boot when I didn't. I couldn't form another question, my tongue felt thick in my mouth, thick and dry and completely useless.

I grabbed my cup of tea and took a hearty sip. The liquid wasn't hot enough to scald my tongue, but not quite at a comfortable drinking temperature either. Still it gave me an excuse not to talk, and Quill took over the conversation again with a frown.

"So the Visitor appeared to be male?" He asked. "Is there anything else you can tell us about the ghost?"

"I personally can't," Jacobs replied. "Lost the last of my talents decades ago – you know how it is." He gave a rueful smile as if sharing a self-deprecating with Quill, who grimaced at the mention of his fading talents.

"Can any of the children tell us then?" Quill continued, trying to keep on track. Jacobs shrugged. "Perhaps you could get something out of them, but I wouldn't bother."

"And why not?" I asked, putting my cup down with more force than necessary.

"Because everybody in town knows it was Christopher Carlyle."

For a moment we were all silent. My sisters and I had had that suspicion already, but hearing it still made my stomach turn. I had always feared he'd come back one day, and now it seemed like he had. My Mam's cynical joke about him haunting the local pub suddenly wasn't so funny anymore.

"How can you be so sure about that?" Quill asked, looking at me from the corner of his eyes.

"Well, while the kids are too young to have known him, those of us who did can take a guess based on the description. Besides, he was the last death at the station."

Quill nodded. "I see. And there aren't any other leads?"

"No. The Visitor was sighted again last night, so we have advised people to stay away from the station after curfew until further notice."

"No idea what the source could be then?"

"None. We didn't engage. Getting Mrs Carlyle to the clinic was our main priority, we were planning to investigate soon."

I finally found my voice again. "Well, you don't have to anymore." I put my cup down with more force than necessary, and both Quill and Jacobs turned to look at me. "Like we said, we're taking on the case."

"You said you _want _to take the case," Jacobs pointed out. "I never said I would hand it to you." Of course. He just _had_ to be difficult. After the entire conversation, he still threw up a claim on the case.

Quill raised an eyebrow at him and voiced my thoughts. "Why answer our questions then? The family asked us to investigate, so we will."

"Are you sure that is wise, miss Carlyle?" The way Jacobs looked at me made my blood boil. During the conversation, I had kept my old anger under lock and key as much as I could, stashing the emotions away to get as much information from my old supervisor as we could. Now it reared its ugly head with full force, and I shot up from my chair.

"I don't need anyone to question my judgement," I bit out. "Least of all you!"

Quill got his feet too, putting a hand on my arm and trying to calm me down. I tried to pull my arm out of his grip, but he wouldn't budge.  
"Thank you for the help sir, have a good day" He blurted, trying to pull me along with him in the general direction of the door. Jacobs watched silently as I put up a token struggle to Quill dragging me along. The man only opened his mouth when Quill had opened the door and tried to steer me through.

"Miss Carlyle – Lucy," he called after us. With great reluctance I turned my head to look at him over my shoulder. "You're right. For what it is worth, I'm sorry for what happened at the Wythburn mill that night. I will forever regret that I did not listen to your insight." He took care to meet my eyes, and the wrinkles in his skin seemed to be even deeper than they had been at the start of our conversation.

I closed my eyes, trying to swallow down the lump in my throat that rose with the mention of that terrible night. "So do I," I managed. With that I walked out, closing the door behind me. Quill didn't let go of me but led me down the hallway towards the front door, pretending not to notice the curious eyes of the children peeking out of the kitchen.

**A/N: So, here's chapter 5! It took a little longer than I expected at first, but I hope it was worth the wait. Please let me know what you think in a comment!**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Warning, implied child abuse and echo of a death**

* * *

We spent the rest of the day after my visit to Jacobs preparing for our excursion to the station that night. The meeting had left me feeling off, but now that we were making our way through the streets I started feeling better. Cases were familiar grounds to me, even if there were still nerves fluttering in my stomach. I was wearing my standard case outfit, which comprised a black skirt and leggings, my combat boots, a roll collar shirt, and my warm jacket. My equipment belt sat underneath it. I'd also pulled on an old pair of fingerless gloves. It was a lot easier to use my sense of touch if I didn't need to take off and put on my gloves all the time.

The others were decked out similarly. We were carrying our regular kit and in Quill's case a pair of crystal goggles. Despite him not being an official part of our team, he was carrying a rapier as well. Lockwood had bought the extra sword when restocking our supplies and swore that the fact that it was an Italian rapier with a small green stone in the hilt was purely a coincidence. I knew Quill appreciated it all the same.

Lockwood and George flanked me as we walked up to the station, a fact the skull in my backpack had commented on multiple times during our walk.

"You'd think they are afraid you will break down," it had chuckled when I first noticed the boys' proximity when we left my street. "Poor little Lucy, off to fight her father."

"Shut up," I had hissed in reply. "I'll put you back under the bed."

When we made our way up the steps to the main entrance of the station, Lockwood grabbed my hand. I stopped walking as the others went ahead, giving us a moment to speak privately.

"We can stop and go back to the cottage at any time," Lockwood promised, his voice soft and serious. "You only have to say the word and we'll leave. No questions asked."

I gave him a soft smile. "I'll be fine, Lockwood. Let's just get this over with."

Lockwood watched my face for a moment, searching my face for fear or hesitation. I wasn't sure. What he saw apparently satisfied him because he gave a shallow nod and let go of my hand.

It was odd, being at Whitton on Dean's station at night. Despite only being a small-town station, the station hall was never empty during the day, never this still. There were no commuters waiting for the next train, no porters keeping the station order, and no one manning the kiosk to sell sandwiches, newspapers or dish out the town's latest gossip. And yet, I could feel we weren't alone.

So could the others. George and Lockwood still stuck to me like glue, guarding my sides like Lockwood and I had done for George in the Bickerstaff house. This would have annoyed me under normal circumstances–I was not a trainee anymore after all–but now their presence held a comforting quality. Holly seemed uneasy too. Her dark eyes kept flitting across the hall as we set up the first of our circles, and she kept one hand near the hilt of her rapier.

"There is something in the atmosphere here," she remarked in a tight voice.

"There is," Quill agreed. He pulled down the goggles and glanced around, keeping watch for unexpected Visitors. "And not just those stale sandwiches."

I finished closing the chain circle and looked up, concentrating on my inner senses. I had to push away the unease that lingered in my gut. Some nerves during a haunting are inevitable, but these weren't the usual haunting jitters. For as long as I can remember, I had disliked being at the station. Something about the building and the tracks had always made me uneasy. When I was small, the tracks took people to far off destinations I didn't know. After my father had died there, that unease took on a more permanent quality. Because I was too small to stay home alone, Mam took me along when she visited stationmaster Mills to collect the tiny widow's pension she got after my father's death. Mills had realised how I felt about the station, even during daytime, and suggested Mam came to his house across the road instead.

"I'm not getting any sounds yet," I said after a moment of Listening. "There seems to be miasma though." I reached for my mints, only to find they weren't there, and turned to walk back to the doorway we'd entered through. It was where Mam had been found, so I expected stronger phenomena there. However, when I measured the temperature it didn't differ much with the outside temperature

I wrote down the temperature and closed my eyes, intending to give Listening another shot, when the skull made himself known.

"_I can spare you the effort," it chuckled. "You're following the wrong lead. This visitor isn't going to appear on these steps." _

"Isn't it? I thought it would appear in the station for sure,"

"_I never said it wasn't in the station." _

I bit back a deep sigh. "So where is it, then?" I asked, already suspecting that his answer would not be particularly helpful. The skull clacked his none existent tongue. _"I'm not sure I want to help,"_ it said. "If you want some quiet time, you only have to ask," I replied swinging off my backpack and reaching in to close the lever.

"_Wait, wait,"_ it cried. I paused in my movement. _"There's no need to take away my entertainment! Check out the site of death."_

Deciding not to dignify him with a response, I made my way back to the others, who were standing near the little kiosk.

"There's a colder spot next to the archway to the platform, but it is a degree lower than the rest of the station hall, so it could just be a draught," Holly began the discussion of our observations. "Near the lockers? I noticed that too but didn't observe any other phenomena," George agreed.

"Well, it is still early, so that's not too surprising," Lockwood interjected. He was leaning against the booth, glancing around the small hall with a searching look. I assumed he was keeping an eye out for visible traces while we conversed so he could warn us if the visitor popped up. Our chain circle was big enough for all of us to get into if we needed its safety, but it would be a tight fit. As there was no immediate danger of a ghost, Quill and I were still standing outside it. "Maybe we should wait for fifteen minutes and then do another round of measurements."

"The skull said we should have a look at the site of death," I said. My friends turned their attention to me.

"The site of death?" Quill repeated. He had pushed the goggles up, and the red circles around his eyes gave him an owlish look. "Was he helpful enough to tell you where that is, for once?"

"No, he prefers to leave us guessing, but it isn't too hard in this case. I'm assuming we should check out the tracks…"

We got right to it, making our way to the platforms. After we had created another chain circle to retreat into if the situation got dire, Lockwood spoke again. "There is a remnant of a death glow above the tracks, right in the middle," he said. "The skull was probably right about us having more luck here. George, Lucy and Holly, you stay on this side of the tracks, Quill and I will check out the other platform. We'll meet back up here in half an hour."

I watched as Lockwood jumped off the edge of the platform down to the tracks. He moved without hesitation, crossing the tracks and climbing up on the other platform. Quill followed at a slower pace, wobbling slightly when some ballast stones moved beneath his feet. The height difference between the platform and the tracks was only a few feet, but I suspected sticking the landing on those stones was harder than Lockwood had made it look.

"George, you go left, Holly stays in the centre and I go right?" I asked, turning back to George and Holly. They nodded. George pulled a packet of mints out of a pocket on his belt and handed it to me. "I saw you were out of them. Call us if you find something, Luce," he said gravely. I pocketed the packet and moved towards my chosen location.

The first thing I did was close my eyes and listen again. The only sound I heard was the whistling of the wind through the conjugated iron roof and a few last birdcalls in the far distance. On the paranormal level, everything still seemed silent. It was as if the station was holding its breath in expectance of the haunting that might begin any second now.

I walked towards the few benches on the far end of the platform, getting my thermometer out to take temperature readings. It felt repetitive, but I didn't know what else I could do. Perhaps I should've made myself comfortable and waited for something to happen, but the nervous had reared their head full force and I couldn't bring myself to stay still.

The moon was out and its light cast strange shadows through the uncovered gap over the tracks. I stopped my exploration to glance the black shapes for a moment, standing on the dotted line near the edge of the platform.

Were the shadows near the bench moving? It was hard to see in the low light, but I could swear the dark area had grown since I last looked at it. I slowly brought up the thermometer I was holding and shuddered when the whistling of the wind picked up.

"_Poor Lucy"_ a voice snickered, and I jumped, pulling my rapier and taking on a defensive stance. I had forgotten all about the ghost jar in my backpack, which seemed to amuse the ghost greatly. _"Afraid of shadows now?" _

Forgetting all about my malaise, I slung off the backpack. When I opened the flap, the grotesque face in the jar grinned back up at me.

"Don't scare me like that, you idiot!" I hissed.

"_Why not? It's funny!_" was the snickered reply. "_It's not like there's much happening here. This case is beneath you!" _

"No, it's not! Whatever's lurking here killed my Mam. She didn't give herself ghost-touch!"

"_Are you sure about that? I'm telling you, there's nothing he-_" The skull cut himself off mid-sentence. _"Oh. Never mind, there it is. Good luck!" _

And with that cheery comment, the skull went dormant again. The face disappeared in a swirl of plasm and left starring down at a grinning old skull while his words registered in my mind.

I put the backpack down with great care and turned around slowly, as if fast movements would wake up a wild animal that would maul me to death. To be frank, I think I would have preferred a hungry lion or wolf. With growing dread, I watched as a mass of pulsing darkness detached itself from the shadows surrounding the bench. It moved with choppy motions, crashing forwards in waves of black ink before pulling back again like the surf of the sea. In the middle of the darkness, a figure grew taller in shocking bursts, as if somebody was assembling a puppet out of loose pieces, from the feet up.

A metallic rattling in the distance joined the whistling of the wind, growing stronger and stronger until it felt like my eardrums would pop.

What I had been hearing all evening was not the wind after all.

My sight isn't as good as Lockwood's. The black cloud around the ghost kept me from seeing the figure clearly. I couldn't see facial features or the details of the clothes it was wearing, but as the ghost formed itself, I still knew.

In front of me stood the ghost of my father.

I wanted to turn around, shout for George or Holly-anyone- but I couldn't move. The malaise that had gripped me all evening had deepened into ghost-lock. I was forced to watch in horror as the darkness around the ghost pulsed, grew, shrank, and grew again.

"_My blood…"_ a long-forgotten voice rasped over the psychic train tracks rattling and high-pitched whistling. _"My own BLOOD!"_

Most ghosts are barely more than memories of the person they were in life. Except for Type Threes, ghosts can't properly communicate, and most are doomed to repeat scenes from their life or death for eternity. My father was no Type Three, so when he started moving in my direction, it was in the slow, drunken stagger he'd had in life. Because of the ghost-lock, I was forced to stay still and watch his approach. He raised an arm as if preparing to strike something, and suddenly I was four years old all over again.

After six daughters he could barely keep track of, my father didn't care for me much when I was a little girl. He was as glad to leave my upbringing to my sisters as my mother was, and I can't recall if he ever called me anything besides 'girl'.

There was only one occasion that I can recall when I had his full, undivided attention. Even though I didn't know it at the time, I could hear ghosts before I could see them. One night, shortly after curfew, a loud knock sounded on our front door, and I went gone to open it. One of my sisters-to this day I still don't remember which one-stopped me before I could let the stone-knocker in, but our father had seen the whole thing. The evening had ended with me crawling into Mary's bed, where she held me until I had cried myself to sleep because of the pain.

Right now I was thrown right back into that memory. Despite being older and taller, I still felt like my four-year-old self, cowering before the intimidating figure of my father.

"No…" I managed despite the ghost lock. "I didn't do anything!" But my father didn't hesitate. He raised his arm above his head threateningly, and the station seemed to fade away around me.

"Please, don't!" I screwed my eyes shut in anticipation and clenched my teeth, steeling myself for what was coming. I balled my fists.

Or tried to, anyway. My fingers were wrapped tightly around the hilt of a sword.

At once the ghost-lock fell away, and I was back in the present. With a cry, I slashed through the manifestation. The move wasn't elegant, or even an actual manoeuvre, but it made the dark spirit move back, dark curls of ectoplasm dissolving as my blade passed through. The thing didn't appreciate my assault. It let out a burst of psychic energy that almost threw me off of my feet. I did my best to regain my balance, but when I placed a foot backwards, I stepped into thin air.

My heart leapt into my throat as I fell, but I didn't have time to cry out. As mentioned before, the height difference between the tracks and the platform was only a few feet. That didn't mean that I Landed softly. I toppled over the edge and fell flat onto my back, right onto the iron tracks. The impact forced the air out of my lungs, and for a moment all I could do was lay there.

Somebody shouted my name, but I was too busy trying to regain my breath to acknowledge them. Squeezing my eyes tight shut, I placed my hand on the ground beside me to push me into a sitting position, so I could assess myself for injuries.

Someone once told me that my talent is a curse rather than a blessing, as it makes me feel the emotions, including the pain of someone else. I never paid the thought much attention, first of all because my talent had helped me find important information in a great many cases, and secondly, because I had been told so by a murderer. I didn't put much stock in the opinion of a man who bricked up the body of the woman he swore was the love of his life.

Right now I was inclined to agree on the thought though. The moment my bare fingertips brushed across the ballast stones, I was thrown back into the past by the echo they held.

It was as if somebody turned the dial of a radio to full volume. Suddenly the station came alive with the sounds of a busy day: A sharp, shrill whistle of a train conductor, talking people, the distant rattling of train tracks. Somehow my head felt dull and muddled as if my brain was stuffed with cotton balls.

"Hurry Al!" a voice, younger, higher than I remembered it but still recognisable.

"We need to go back, he'll see us!" A different voice responded.

Despite the ruckus of the station, I could easily pick out her voice from the crowd. I felt the flare of anger, clouded by the haze in my mind.

"We just have to hide until the Intercity passes by, we can go to the other platform then."

"Too late, he's seen us! He'll stop us, Margaret!" A third voice called.

Anger, determination, another wave of dizziness.

"He's coming this way, we need to go!"

The rattling on the tracks grew louder, as did the anger. Sounds around me fluctuated as if I was making my way through a crowd to get closer to the girls' voices. The sound of flesh against flesh as a hand clasped around an upper arm, sick satisfaction. Emotions followed each other up in quick succession.

"Let me go!" a voice cried.

"Where do you think you are going?" The girls didn't answer. "WHERE?!"

"Newcastle…" the response was soft but high pitched and panicked. The rattling grew louder. "Let her go!"

Lost balance, a fall, and anger turned into terror. The tremors ran through the tracks, through me. A train whistle blew violently.

My scream mingled with the one in the echo until somebody ripped my hands away from the stones. The echo ended abruptly before I could hear or feel the moment of impact that was mercilessly inevitable. I snapped my eyes open, panting like a panicked rabbit. George was holding my wrists.

Footsteps pounded on the platforms as the others ran towards us, but I could not focus on anything but George, who gently released my wrists. His eyes were wide behind his glasses, and his face was pale. The worry in his expression grew sharper as I reached up to cover my mouth, trying to bite back the sob bubbling up in my throat. I lunged forward and buried my face in his shoulder.

There's a lot that can be said about George. He is stubborn and scatterbrained, lets himself get drawn in by his curiosity, and his hygienic standards can be frankly appalling at times. We hadn't gotten started on the best terms, that's for sure. Despite this, he had grown on me, and I was proud to claim him as a close friend. George wrapped his arms around me without comment and held me tightly as I struggled to get my breathing back under control, stroking my shoulders.

After a moment the world filtered through again, and I felt ready to pull away.

"Better?" George asked. I gave a small nod in response. "So, did we just meet your father?"

I hesitated. "Could you hear it?" I asked, wrecking my mind to remember whether the ghost had said anything besides the weird comment about blood.

George shook his head, pushing his glasses back up his nose.

"No, but I heard you."

"Oh…" I managed. "It-it was…"

When I looked up to avoid George's eyes, I saw Lockwood and Quill running towards us along the tracks. Holly was up on the platform I had just fallen off of. She was holding her rapier ready, watching as the darkness slowly reformed into a man-shaped ghost. When he saw I was uninjured, Quill pulled his own rapier and joined Holly in holding off the dark spectre-my father-while Lockwood helped me up. He reached out a hand to pull George to his feet as well, but George shook his head. Without a word he slipped off his glove and put his fingers to the ballast stones.

George and I both have the talent of Touch, but where it comes naturally to me, George has to concentrate a lot harder to pick up on the psychic traces left behind in objects. I'm not sure how he experiences them, but I was sure it was safe to say it wasn't as deeply as I did. The only outward change I could detect in him was the way his frown grew deeper.

"Well, that was a bad one for sure," George sighed as he pulled his hand back. "I'm sorry you experienced that Luce…"

"If you're quite done down there, we could use some assistance," Quill called out. As if to emphasise his point, the darkness swirled forwards, as if to swell up him and Holly. Anger flared up in my gut, burning with a vengeance. I tore a canister off of my belt and hurled it into the cloud of dark plasm.

"Back off!" I shouted as the Greek fire ignited in an explosion of salt, iron, and magnesium. The vicious flames tore the spectre apart, and the ectoplasm dissolved into the air.

There was a beat of silence. Quill shoved his goggles up to stare at me, Holly lowered her rapier, and George raised a single eyebrow. I didn't pay them any mind, climbing up onto the platform and making my way to my backpack, where even the skull was staring at me from his jar.

"Lockwood?" I asked without looking back at him.

"Yes?"

"I'm saying the word."

* * *

**A/N: I'm still here! It's been a while since I had the opportunity to write, but I was on a roll the past few days, so here's chapter six! **

**I'd love to hear what you think, so please leave a review.**


	7. Chapter 7

"Would you stop fidgeting?" Judith chastised me. Feeling caught, I let go of the hem of my dress, which I had been pulling at. I crossed my arms to stop myself from reaching for something else to play with and tried to focus on my surroundings again. Judith wasn't the only one who had noticed my restlessness. On my left, Margaret gave me a disapproving glare. She would have said something herself, but she and her husband were too busy trying to keep Isabelle in her seat. My family and I were sitting in the front pews of the small church a little distance outside the village, waiting for the pallbearers to bring the coffin up to the altar.

I had dressed up for the funeral with Holly's help. I wore a knee-length black dress which I had bought on a whim a couple months ago. The original price had been above my budget, but I bought it on sale and had planned to wear it for the small Christmas celebration we held at Portland Row each year. After Aickmere's that didn't happen, and I hadn't had the opportunity to wear it until now. The soft, swishing fabric that pooled over my lap like water wasn't exactly case-proof. That morning I had pulled my hair back in one of those half up-does, and Holly had used some of Alice's make up to hide the dark circles underneath my eyes.

I had barely gotten a wink of sleep since our experience at the station. I would have tried to make up for the lack of sleep with a few cat naps spread over the day, but yesterday had been dedicated to funeral preparations and the only times I was able to sneak away from choosing music, verses to be read and flower arrangements, I had to keep Isabelle and Oliver entertained.

It had been a long day followed by another restless night. Every time I closed my eyes, my mind flashed back to the echo I had been thrown into on the tracks. I just couldn't shake off the memory of terrified dread.

My friends had been nothing short of amazing. As promised, Lockwood marched us back to the cottage without so much as a comment. The moment we got back, Holly dragged me into the kitchen and slammed the door on the guys. Although it was only half past 10, Rebecca and Judith had already gone to bed so we had the kitchen to ourselves.

"Could you lift your shirt for me, Lucy?" Her tone sounded politely questioning, but I could see the mad determination I'd glimpsed back in Aldbury Castle, and decided not to protest. After pointing her to the first aid kit in the cabinet under the sink, I dutifully sad down and pulled up the hem of my shirt to just below my bra.

Holly gasped softly when she saw my back. I assumed that the bruising from my fall was showing. My muscles were already stiffening up for sure, I knew I'd be sore the following day. Holly worked fast, cleaning up the few scrapes with a cotton ball she had dipped in iodine before rubbing ointment on the bruises. After letting it dry, I tucked my shirt back into the waistband of my skirt.

Holly was packing the first aid kit back up, shooting glances in my direction. There was a question on her mind, but she seemed hesitant to voice it. I raised an eyebrow at her, and then she went for it.

"Lucy, that scar on your lower back…"

"What about it?"

"Is it from a case?"

For a moment I hesitated. Then I shook my head.

"No, it's older."

Holly opened her mouth to ask further, but I shook my head. "I don't want to talk about it, Holly. "

Holly took mercy on me, and without another word, she packed up the first aid kit and returned it to its proper place.

When my sisters rose up from the pews, I got to my feet as well. I tried to glance around subtly. My sisters were sorrowful, and Grace was already handing out tissues to the others. Isabelle and Oliver seemed uneasy as well, sticking close to their fathers. They didn't understand what we were all doing in church when it wasn't Sunday, and the heavy atmosphere upset them.

Four strong men carried the coffin down the aisle. I recognised Agent Jacobs, his expression sombre and serious. He looked perfectly in place, carrying the coffin in his dark undertaker suit. Stationmaster Mills, who walked in front of him, did not. He was wearing a dark suit as well, but something about it seemed ill-fitting. Maybe it was just his posture while carrying the coffin, but it looked like he was trying to disappear into it.

Nobody wanted to see a Ghost-touched body, so when the coffin was placed on the stand infant of the altar, it remained closed. The priest had performed the last rites in private earlier that morning. Behind the closed lid, Mam's body had silver coins on the eyes, and an iron chain around the neck. The priest had said prayers and put a sprig of lavender on her chest, to stop her from coming back as a Visitor. I doubted it was necessary. We had complied with all her last requests, and I couldn't imagine her having any unfinished business.

The organ started the first notes of the hymn we had chosen, and soon the congregation started singing.

"So..." When we all had a steaming mug of tea, Kipps was the one who started the conversation.

"What happened back there? We saw you be blown backwards, and the next moment you were screaming bloody murder."

I didn't look up from my mug when I replied to him, watching the steam rising from the tea curl and swirl into the air instead.

"I fell onto the tracks. I... I experienced-" my voice broke, and I had to take a deep breath before I could start again. "I felt the echo of the ghost's death. My father's death..." A heavy silence descended on us, and I took a quick sip of tea to distract myself from the awkward glances the others were shooting my way. Of course I burned my tongue on it.

"That must have been terrible," Holly whispered. I nodded to show I'd heard her, but I didn't know what to say in response, so I kept quiet.

"But shouldn't the iron from the tracks have suppressed any psychic energy?" Quill asked. He was swirling his tea around in his mug with his teaspoon, not making any move to drink it. I gave a little shrug, but George had an explanation ready.

"The echo didn't one from the tracks, but from the ballast stones," he started, "and I could pick up on it almost as fast as Lucy. Taking into account what we saw tonight, as well as what that Jacobs fellow told us the other day, it is safe to say that the apparition is strong. His death was violent, so it is possible that we were able to pick up on the echo because of the blood that will have dripped through the stones after the collision with the train kill-"

"Yes, very interesting George," Lockwood interrupted. "But perhaps not what we should focus on right now." George's gaze flicked towards me and he gave a short nod. "right, of course."

Lockwood turned to me, his expression softening ever so slightly. "What do you want to do, Luce? We can tell Jacobs of our findings and transfer the case to him so we can leave after the funeral, if you would prefer that."

I was shaking my head before he had even finished his sentence. "No, I can handle this," I stated, although I wasn't sure I could. The others exchanged worried glances, but nobody challenged me on it. Soon after we all went to bed.

Most of the service after the coffin was brought in passed me by in a blur. Hymns were sung, a passage was read and preached about, Grace and Judith delivered the eulogy. Mary grabbed my hand while the priest read a final passage. The tears streaming down her face sent a jolt through my chest, and I glanced around at my other sisters. They were all crying softly, dabbing at their eyes with tissues, or in Margaret and Alice's case, sniffling into their husbands' shoulders. Grace was clutching Peter's hand as if it was the only thing anchoring her, and Rebecca had turned in her seat to reach for the young woman sitting in the pew behind her, who took her hand and pressed a gentle kiss to her palm.

I laced my fingers together with Mary's and looked down at my knees. Never had I wished for my hair to cover my face as much as in that moment, the one time I had pulled it back entirely. All my sisters were looking for comfort and reassurance as the funeral service was coming to a close and the pallbearers got ready to carry the coffin again.

What would people think of me for not crying at the funeral of my own mother?

The plot of land prepared for Mam's coffin was located right next to my father's grave. It was small, most of the space taken up by the grave that had been dug earlier. Iron strips lined the rectangular plot of land to discourage nightly strolls of the death. As the coffin was lowered, the priest said a final prayer and then my sisters and I tossed our lavender and lily bouquets onto the coffin.

After all the rituals were finished, my sisters and I took our position to receive the guests' condolences. It was a seemingly endless stream of people telling us how sorry they were for our loss, and what a good person Mam had been. _Hah_.

I had to turn a particularly unbelieving scoff into a coughing fit when Mrs Abrahams - the owner of one of the two hotels in town - clasped my hands in between hers and told me what a loss Mam's death was to the community. I was sure the only loss Mrs Abrahams felt was the time she'd have to spend trying to find herself a new washerwoman.

Holly was the first of my friends to give me her condolences, and she was also the first whose words sounded genuine.

"I'm so sorry, Lucy," she whispered as she pulled me into a tight hug.

"Thank you, Hol," I murmured back, and then she was off shaking hands with my sisters. Kipps put a warm hand on my shoulder when he offered his condolences, and George simply grasped my hand. We had shared enough physical contact at the station to fulfil our quota for the next couple weeks.

Lockwood hung back a bit, allowing other guests to approach me first. One of them was stationmaster Mills. Mills was a man in his late fifties, with severe grey eyes and a permanent 5 o'clock shadow. Just like agent Jacobs, the townfolk respected him, but unlike agent Jacobs, nobody avoided him.

"I'm sorry for your loss, Little Miss," he told me. When he shook my hand, he pushed a folded square of paper into my palm.

I fiddled with the edges of the note as I watched Mam's coffin disappear underneath the dirt. Each spade full should have hammered down the fact that Mam was gone, but my thoughts were wandering yet again. As I watched, I couldn't help but wonder. Had they had buried my old friends like that? With a simple service and insincere mourners telling their family platitudes? I had to swallow down the lump in my throat at the thought. I hadn't been there.

With an angry gesture, I wiped the only tears I'd shed that day away and looked up. Lockwood was standing infant of me. For once there wasn't no hint of a smile on his face. His dark eyes were serious and sombre as he pulled me into a quick embrace.

"We'll solve this case, Luce," he promised me, and those words meant more to me than any condolences ever could.

"Thank you, Lockwood," I managed. He tightened the hug for a moment and then stepped away.

"Will you be okay?" he asked, and I gave a nod. "Good, we'll be waiting for you Luce." he was about to walk away when I grabbed his hand and slipped him the square of paper.

"Could you keep that safe for me? I don't have pockets."

The barest hint of a smile appeared on his face as he put the paper in one of his pockets.

"Of course, Lucy."

—

After the service and burial, we all went back to the house. the rest of Lockwood and Co had holed up in my old room, and left my family and me to sorting through Mam's stuff. I still wasn't all there with my thoughts, so when my sisters put me and Mary at the kitchen table to write thank-you notes to all the condolence cards we had received since the obituary had been posted in the local paper two days ago, I didn't protest. Benedict stayed in the kitchen as well, watching Isabelle and Oliver as they coloured so they wouldn't bother their mothers and aunts.

For the next hour and a half, Mary and I wrote the cards, while our other sisters went through Mam's stuff to see what was worth keeping and what we could throw away. It was easy to get lost in my task, and I threw myself into it with full dedication trying to ignore the occasional sniffles that came from Mary.

—

In fact, I was so engrossed in penning down the same message over and over again (_Anne Carlyle's daughters: Margaret, Alice, Judith, Rebecca, Mary and Lucy, thank you for your sympathy during this trying time_), I almost didn't notice when Lockwood walked into the kitchen and dropped the little square of paper on the table next to me. He shot me a small smile before turning around. He brushed past Judith on his way out, who was entering the kitchen with a set of photo albums underneath her arm.

I put down my pen, which was almost out of ink anyway, and finally looked at the note stationmaster Mills had handed me. The message was short and to the point, entirely in line with what I had expected from the man.

_Dear Little Miss, _

_I hope you and your friends can find the time to join me for tea tomorrow morning. I have something to share which might aide you in your investigation. _

_Jonathan Mills_

"If you're quite done exchanging notes with your boyfriend?" Judith sniped as she dumped the photo albums on the last free spot on the table. Heat rose to my cheeks.

"I don't know what you are talking about," I tried. Judith just snorted.

"Oh please, we all saw you two at the cemetery."

"What is it to you anyway?" I snapped. Judith didn't answer, just shot me an angry glare. We may have ended up in a staring contest, if my other sisters hadn't come dripping into the kitchen at that moment.

"Oh, you found the albums Judith?" Alice asked, wiping a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "Let's see them!"

It was strange, being in that kitchen with all my sisters. The last time everyone had sat here together, I had been about six years old. In the years that followed, my sisters all found their own life and left home. The evidence of that were Benedict, Richard, and Peter, squeezed to the side of the small room as we all crowded around the table to look at the pictures. Isabelle had squeezed herself in-between Margaret and Alice, standing on her tiptoes to see the albums too.

I tried to join in on the reminiscing about our childhood as we leaved through the photos, but a lot of the anecdotes had happened before I was born or when I was too young to remember. I felt a strange sense of isolation wash over me. No matter what, I would always be different from the other women at the kitchen table. If not because of my talent, because of my stubborn personality, or the way my accent had changed since moving to London, then because of the difference in age.

If you glanced at the photos, it was hard to say who was who without the descriptions. All of us had dark hair and a somewhat similar build, although Mary had stayed somewhat more delicate than the rest of us as she grew up. The only one who was actually pretty if you compared her to the magazines was Judith. The rest of us shared our strong facial features. It was only because of the names scribbled on the first pages of the album that you could know for sure who you were looking at.

"I think we're missing an album," Margaret remarked, wiping away a stray tear with the back of her hand. "None of these albums contain pictures of Mary or Lucy."

"Maybe the other album is upstairs somewhere?" I suggested. "I'll go and check Mam's room." Without waiting for the others, I rose from my chair and pushed my way out of the kitchen.

"I already checked Mam's room for albums, you won't find them!" Judith protested. I ignored her. I knew I wouldn't find Mary's or my baby pictures in this house; I had taken the album with me when I left for London over two years ago.

I walked up the stairs and across the landing, pausing for a moment to listen outside the door to my room. My friends were talking to each other in hushed tones. A few seconds later somebody, I suspected it was Kipps, gave a groan, and the others laughed. Perhaps they were playing a card game, Kipps was notoriously bad at those. I could hear the skull give petulant commentary, but as nobody besides me could hear it, it didn't make much of a difference. It was good to hear them. It brought a sense of normalcy, and I resolved to go sit with them for a while after checking out Mam's room.

Entering Mam's room was strange. For as long as I remembered, the room had been off limits, and for a moment as I stood there, looking at the cream coloured walls, I expected Mam to come in and yell at me. It was a ridiculous thought. Even if she came back as a visitor – and as mentioned before, I highly doubted she would – Her coming to haunt her bedroom was unlikely.

Mam slept in a slept in a small double bed, with a soft pink bedspread and pillow. The cotton sheets were at least a decade old, but still stark white, and when I touched them to lift the mattress, they felt soft. They were a testament to her skills as a laundress. I heaved up the mattress and shoved my knee underneath to keep it up right as I looked underneath.

A thick manila folder lay in the middle of the slatted base frame. I grabbed it, let the mattress fall back in place again, and sat down on top of it. I took off the little elastic bands that held the folder closed and opened it.

The room seemed to tilt around me as I leafed through its contents. They were newspaper cutouts, articles from different newspapers, and I recognised every single headline. The earliest one was about the house fire on sheen road, the latest about Aickmere's. A weight landed on my chest with enough force to send my mind reeling when I found the thick envelope in between.

I closed up the folder with shaking fingers and stumbled out of Mam's room. I made my way across the landing, down the stairs, and past the kitchen.

Somebody, Mary I think, saw me walk by and stuck her head out of the door opening.

"Lucy? Where are you going?"

I didn't answer her. I felt cooped up and out of breath, I needed to be alone, but that was pretty much impossible in this house.

I walked straight out the front door without a second thought. The outside air seemed to lift the weight on my chest a little, but the house still loomed over me, and I felt small in its shadow.

With the folder clutched to my chest, I started running.

**A/N: Chapter 7 is here! I hope you enjoyed this, because this was a fun but difficult chapter to write. Please let me know what you thought!**


	8. Chapter 8

I did not stop running until I had reached the small hill that overlooked the water meadows, a good two miles from the cottage. Let me tell you, running that far on the flimsy ballerina flats I had been wearing to the funeral was quite a feat. I stood still to give myself the opportunity to regain my breath, overlooking the fields of wildflowers that reached to the river. It was a gorgeous sight, the likes of which I hadn't seen since I left for London.

I made my way down the hill, careful not to slip or step into one of the many rabbit holes, and dropped down in the grass at the base, letting the folder I had been clutching to my chest fall down next to me.

The contents of that folder changed everything. Every single thing I thought I knew about Mam had been turned on its head, and I was struggling to find out what was up and what was down again.

My mother wasn't someone who payed a lot of attention to her daughters' milestones. Sure, there were the pictures she took of us while we grew up, but those dwindled so much that all photos of Mary and me fit in one album with room to spare. She didn't decorate our fridge with our children's drawings, and not even the three agency certificates I had earned-representing the end of our poverty at least- had ever been displayed.

I reached for the folder, pushed off the little elastic holding it closed. Making sense of the contents was close to impossible. Every single newspaper article that mentioned Lockwood and co since I had joined the agency. The papers had yellowed over time, and the edges of most of the cut outs curled, as if they had gone through my mother's hands multiple times before ending up in the folder.

I tried to imagine Mam sitting at the kitchen table surrounded by newspapers, with a pair of scissors in hand. The picture didn't want to form in my head. The mere thought felt too out of character for Mam. Taking a deep breath, I reached for the large tan envelope. It only just fit in the folder, and the corners were scrunched up a bit.

I had my suspicions about the contents of the envelope, but having them confirmed when I opened the flap still made me feel like I had been dunked in ice water. They were banknotes, dozens of them. I couldn't bring myself to take them out and count the money, but it wasn't hard to make a guess for the total amount. The flap was soft from all the times it had been opened and stuffed closed again and closing the envelope was easy. I put it back in the folder and tried to make sense of my emotions.

It was harder than I can describe. Confusion and regret battled in my mind, along with a sense of guilt so heavy it threatened to smother my thoughts. I let myself fall back against the base of the hill and closed my eyes. My chest felt heavy, and I longed to be back at 35 Portland Row, where I could hide out in my attic room when everything got too much and I needed a moment to myself.

The silence of the meadow was strange. I had gotten so used to the sounds of the city - cars passing by, sirens going off in the distance, people talking- that the silence was almost unsettling. Only the rustling of the wind through the grass and distant birdcalls could be heard.

The weather was mild today. Not as warm as it had been the past few days, but the sun still shone through the clouds and warmed up the little town enough that I hadn't needed a jacket when I ran out. It was getting colder now though, and goose bumps crept up the skin of my arms and legs. I opened my eyes and saw that the sun had disappeared behind the deck of grey clouds that rolled in from the horizon. Right, I supposed it was time to get back.

I sat up, languidly stretching, when another chill washed over me.

"_Lucy"_

My heart stopped. I listened with my inner ear, but the disembodied voice was gone again, and for a moment I thought I'd imagined it.

"_Luuuuccccyyy!"_

There was no mistaking now. Someone, or perhaps something, was calling my name. I shot to my feet, desperately looking around, but I couldn't see anything. I shot another look at the sky. Had the sun actually disappeared between the clouds? Or was it starting to set?

That was the trouble with spring afternoons. While they weren't nearly as dangerous as those in winter, it was easy to get lulled into a false sense of security. Despite the higher temperature, the sun still set early, and there weren't as many safe hours in a day as during midsummer. Somewhere in the distance I could hear the town's curfew bells toil, and I knew I was in trouble. While it was still light out, the quality of it was changing, and soon the Visitors would have free rein.

With a pounding heart, I reached for my rapier. My weapon wasn't hanging in its usual spot at my hip. After the funeral, we had gone right to organising Mam's affairs and I hadn't changed out of the clothes I had worn to church. This meant that I was still in my fluttery black dress, without my belt, and thus without my rapier. Utterly defenceless. Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw the air near the river shimmer, but when I turned to look it was gone.

"_Lucy!"_

Well, I was not going to wait for it to show up. Taking a deep breath, I gathered my thoughts. I put my emotions into a box to be shoved away on a shelf in the depths of my mind so I could focus on my surroundings. It would be too dangerous to let myself be distracted by them. After grabbing the folder, I started making my way up the hill. Another gust of wind made the skirt of my dress flutter and trailed more goose bumps over my arms in its wake. Suddenly I was reminded of the time I had taken a source back home on accident. The ghost tied to it had appeared in my bedroom and snuck up on me behind my back in the middle of the night.

The same feeling of dread I had felt then threatened to deafen my senses now, and it took all courage I could gather to shoot a look over my shoulder when I was halfway to the top of the hill. I couldn't see anything near the riverbanks, but when I turned back, a dark shape was rushing towards me along the bottom of the hill.

Biting back the cry that rose in my throat, I hastened my pace. I had outrun the visitor of these meadows back when I was a little girl, and I would do so again! Of course, back then I had been running on sturdy little boots that snugly fit to my feet, not flimsy ballerina flats that slipped off my heels every other running step…

I'm sure you can guess what happened next.

My next step was uneven, and my right foot was caught in a hole which sent me sprawling forward. The stupid shoe slipped off and rolled down the hill, but I was more concerned with the folder that fell open and spilled its contents across the grass. I had forgotten to place the elastics back over the corners. Ignoring my now bleeding knee, I scrambled to my feet and gathered the loose articles as fast as I could. The envelope was a little further ahead.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see the dark shape moving towards me fast, now making its way up the hill.

My shoe I would happily leave behind, but I couldn't bring myself to do that to the envelope. Logically, I knew I wouldn't need the money if I got myself ghost-touched, but I refused to give up anything in there. I managed to grab a corner of the envelope, but I'd forgotten how easily the flap opened. The bank notes spilled out and fluttered to the ground like falling autumn leaves, and I realised I would have to leave them if I wanted to escape the form that was coming ever nearer. I choked on another cry, dropped the envelope, kicked off my other shoe and made to start running again.

A cold hand clasped my arm, and I screamed, fully expecting to feel the ice spread through my veins.

The hand jerked back immediately.

"Luce, it's me." Now that it was close enough to hear without the wind messing with the sound, I finally recognised the voice. I turned around slowly, to find Lockwood looking at me with wide eyes. His hair was messy, as if he'd been running his hands through it repeatedly. The laces of his shoes were tied unevenly, and his long coat hung open. His rapier hung at his side, but it was skewed as if he'd attached it to his belt in a hurry. He held up his hands to show they were empty and spoke softly, as if he was talking to a wounded animal. In a way, I felt like one.

"It's okay, Lucy," he whispered. "Nothing's going to hurt you." I couldn't manage a reply. My vision was blurring, and I was shaking, rubbing at my bare arm as if that would drive away the cold that had enveloped me. That box of my emotions was teetering on the edge of the shelf in my mind. Lockwood took a careful step closer, slowly so that I could move away if I wanted to.

I didn't want to.

When Lockwood reached out - perhaps to touch my shoulder or brush loose strands of hair out of my face - the box came crashing down. I moved forward myself and buried my face in his shoulder.

If there's one thing I don't like, it's crying in front of other people. It can't always be avoided with my talent. It's easy for me to pick up a psychic connection and experience the emotions that come with it. Those emotions were a lot easier to shake off though.

I didn't even try to stop the sobs wracking my chest. The past few days had been too much, and after adding the afternoon's emotional rollercoaster to the tumult, I felt I had earned the right to cry for a while. After a moment, Lockwood's arms snaked around my waist, and he pulled me a little closer. He was a strong, warm presence, and for some reason that made me cry even harder.

I'm not sure how long we stood there like that, but it felt like both hours and only seconds passed. I blubbered into Lockwood's shoulder, and he held me without so much as a comment, rubbing little circles in between my shoulder blades with the heel of his palm. Eventually the sobs died down, and with some effort I could draw air deep into my lungs again.

Still, I waited a moment before stepping away, not wanting to pull back from his warmth. Lockwood was looking at me wide eyed, but I avoided his gaze and rubbed at my damp face. This did nothing but smear out the traces of make up my tears had streaked down my cheeks. I stood there awkwardly, trying to make myself look somewhat presentable again (and utterly failing) until Lockwood fished a packet of tissues out of one of the many pockets of his coat.

I turned away from him, blew my nose and wiped away the last tear tracks. There were some black smears of mascara on the tissue, and I assumed on my face, but I couldn't do anything about that effectively until I could actually see what I was doing.

"Lucy, what is all this?" Lockwood asked. In the time it took me to clean myself up a bit, he had picked up the folder and the envelope. He had started to gather the money that had fallen out of the envelope when I panicked. I was unsure of how to answer him at first. I didn't quite understand yet myself.

"Is this your part of the inheritance?" he tried again, slipping the last 100-pound note back into the envelope.

"No, it isn't," I started, but then found I couldn't continue. The burning feeling in my nose that always preceded tears started up again, and I sniffed to try to clear it away. Lockwood looked at me, a frown on his face, and I quickly averted my eyes. There was something about the way he was looking at me, the way he furrowed his eyebrows or how he narrowed his eyes that made me feel vulnerable. It was as if that one look was enough for him to figure me out entirely, and I felt like I had been placed underneath a microscope.

"I think that's all of it," Lockwood said after a beat of silence,, taking the hint and not continuing his line of questioning. He licked his thumb, swiped it across the glue line of the flap and sealed the envelope before handing it to me. "Safer that way. We really should be getting back though, your sisters are worried sick."

"Oh, I'm sure they're having kittens," I muttered. I took the envelope from him and went hunting for my shoes. The left one was nearby, but I had to walk back down the hill to find the other one. It was good to have the distraction though. Now that the shock and panic were gone, I was mentally steeling myself for Lockwood to be angry with me. He was probably very disappointed with my actions. And rightfully so, going out unarmed was such a rookie mistake; even little Emma wouldn't have made it.

"Luce, we need to go!" Lockwood called. "There's something stirring near the river!" I glanced over my shoulder; saw the shimmering near the banks again. Lockwood kept a close eye on me as we left the water meadows behind, but made sure we kept up a fast pace.

When we were halfway to town again, I slowed down so that Lockwood walked ahead of me. There was little danger of ghosts here, and I'd be able to hear them coming far in advance, even if they tried sneaking up on us.

"I wrote Mam every week when I first came to London," I started. "I told her about everything I'd seen, how all the job interviews went and when you hired me, all about you and George." I took a deep breath, trying to break the band that seemed to have wrapped itself around my ribcage. "She didn't answer any of them, so I stopped writing so often. I thought she was just mad at me, for running away like that. She had a right to be, I was the breadwinner of our household and I had abandoned her."

"Lucy…" Lockwood started, but his voice trailed off as if he didn't know what to say. He turned around to look at me, but I kept my gaze trained on the road. Just like in the tunnels underneath Aickmere's department store, it was easier to talk to him without looking at his face.

"I thought if I sent her some money, she might..." my voice shook, and I swallowed. "I sent her cheque each ¬month, with whatever amount of money I could miss. At first I sent letters along with them, but she still never answered them, so I stopped writing her, eventually. She cashed all the cheques, and all this time I thought she was spending all of it like she used too… All this time I thought she only cared about me for the money…"

New tears welled up, and I rubbed them away with an irritated gesture.

"She died, and I didn't even cry at her funeral… What kind of person am I?" Suddenly Lockwood was close again. He brought a hand up to my cheek and wiped away a stray tear with his thumb.

"It's okay," he whispered.

"She was my mother."

"You are allowed to have mixed emotions about this, Luce…" I bit my lip and fought back new tears.

"All those articles" I managed, "All those articles and three thousand pounds…"

"Just because she gave you this, doesn't mean she didn't ignore you for the past two years, Lucy. You have the right to feel upset with her, still." He stroked his thumb across my cheekbone, and I couldn't hold back a little shudder. Lockwood pulled his hand back as if he had been burned.

"We should get going," I whispered, keeping my gaze trained on the ground. I crossed my arms across my chest and rubbed at the bare skin. The hairs on my arms were standing on end, but it was not just from the cold.

Something heavy and warm was wrapped around my shoulders, and I looked up to find Lockwood adjusting his coat around me.

"You're cold," he said when I opened my mouth to protest. "You only have a short-sleeved dress on, I've got a shirt and a jacket. It's fine." I closed my mouth again.

When we got to the house, I noticed a few things. First, the cars were gone. We had taken up quite some space on the road in front of the cottage, with all the cars needed to transport our entire family.

The second thing was that the defences against the supernatural were already firmly in place. The lavender candles in the window had been lit, and I could hear the sound of running water coming from the runnel. My friends seemed to pay no attention to the looming threat of darkness though. Holly, George and Kipps were waiting for us at the porch, quietly looking out into the street. Holly was the first one to see us, and she rushed towards us. The boys followed on her heels.

"Oh Lucy, I'm so glad you're all right!" Holly said, and she grabbed my hands. "You had us worried there! When we couldn't find you and your rapier was still in the hall…" If she had said something like that before I had come back to Lockwood and Co, I probably would've been annoyed, but I knew it wasn't meant to be a jab at me. She was worried.

"I'm sorry," I replied, and pulled my hands back. "I needed some air, and I didn't realise how late it was…"

Holly tutted, but made no other comment. I gave her a weak smile and walked past her, past George and Kipps towards the door.

"Where did you find her, Lockwood?" Kipps asked as they followed me. "She wasn't anywhere in town, was she? I thought we'd checked everywhere…"

"She was near the river," Lockwood answered as I unlocked the door and stepped into the hall.

I ran straight into Mary. Her eyes were red rimmed and her hair messy, but her face lit up when she recognised me.

"Oh, thank god!" She cried before throwing her arms around me and squeezing me tightly. Over her shoulder I could see Judith, Rebecca and Grace standing a little further down the hallway. They really weren't looking much better. Guilt bubbled up in my chest when their features flooded with relief.

It drained away just as quickly when Judith opened her mouth.

"What. Is. Wrong. With. You?!" she bit out, and I pulled away from Mary. I was about to reply when Grace jumped in. They were upset with me because I had scared them, I knew that, but that didn't make taking their sermon any easier.

"How could you do that? You know what happens when you go out after curfew!" She put her hands on her hips and leant forward, almost threateningly. I had half a mind to turn around and leave again, but I was sandwiched in between my sisters and my friends, who were standing behind me awkwardly. Instead, I pulled the edges of Lockwood's coat a little tighter around me and let them shout.

"Grace, Judith, come on… Lucy just-" Mary's meek defence of me was cut off as soon as she'd started it.

"She's an agent, she knows what happens if you go out unprotected!" Judith protested at the same time that Grace said, "Wasn't it bad enough that we had to bury Mam today?"

They probably would have gone on for longer – I didn't have the energy to stop them and defend myself – but then Lockwood did something that was equal parts brave and stupid. He stepped forward, so he was standing next to me, put his hand on my shoulder, and told them off.

"This has been an emotional day for all, of you. Lucy made a mistake, yes, but nothing happened."

"She's bleeding," Rebecca remarked, and gestured at my skinned knee. In all the excitement, I'd forgotten all about it.

"I stepped into a rabbit hole," I said softly. It was the truth, even if I was actually embellishing some events leading up to it. Mary winced in sympathy. She'd broken her ankle by doing the same thing when she was nine.

"As her boss, I have reprimanded Lucy for her actions already, and I don't think it is necessary for you to go over it again." Lockwood shot them a look that wasn't quite a glare, but something in his face showed that he would not accept contradiction.

Judith pressed her lips together tightly and Grace grimaced, but by some miracle, they did not protest.

"Quill, George, could you please walk Mary and Grace home? Holly and I will patch Lucy back up." With that he gently helped me out of his coat, and while George and Kipps accompanied Mary outside, he guided me to the kitchen after Holly.

**A/N: There's a tiny bit of locklyle in here so does it count for a valentine's fic? I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter, please let me know what you think!**


	9. Chapter 9

I stood next to Lockwood as he knocked on the dark green front door. My friends and I were standing in front of a large white cottage across the road from the station's car park. The cottage was generally well cared for, with a clean porch and a section of the roof that had recently been re-tiled. The windowsills could use a lick of paint, though.

There was always something about the cottage that needed to be fixed up, though. Stationmaster Mills did his best to do the maintenance of the house, but with how busy he was, he always ran a little behind. A wave of nostalgia hit me when my eye fell on the hydrangea bush beneath the window. It was bare at the moment, just leaves and buds, but I knew for a fact it would bloom with blue flowers in a few weeks. I had helped prune the bush a couple times when I was a kid.

The door swung open and revealed Mills, wearing a faded pair of work jeans and an old button-up shirt. The expression on his weathered face was relaxed and got a little brighter when he met my eyes. "Ah, there ye all are," he greeted. "Come on in." I gave him a smile in response and lead my friends past him. Getting all of us into the narrow hallway was a bit of a squeeze, but we managed.

An interlude followed as greetings and introductions were exchanged, and jackets were hung on the coatrack.

"Kitchen or sitting room?" I asked, although I could already guess where we would be going. The kitchen was warm and cosy, but also tiny. From memory I would estimate it was about half the size of the kitchen at Portland Row, which was a tight fit with the five of us already.

"The sitting room, Lucy. Ye know the way, I'll make us a cuppa."

I led the others down the hallway into a well-lit room. The floorboard near the door creaked loudly as we stepped on it, and the familiar sound made me smile. Not much had changed over the years. The walls were still papered with striped cream wallpaper, and a couch and two cosy armchairs were arranged around a glass coffee table. A tv cabinet was pushed against the wall next to the window and held an old tv and a picture of Mill's late wife. The remainder of the space was taken up by a wooden bookcase. All in all, the room looked the way it did in my memories. The only new additions appeared to be a crocheted afghan in a navy coloured wool draped over the back of the couch, and a small pin board on the wall next to the bookcase.

"It has barely changed since I was here last," I remarked.

"He seems like someone who likes consistency," Lockwood replied. I couldn't suppress my smile at that. Order and consistency were important to Mills. Lockwood had read his personality well.

"Did you come here often Luce?" George asked, looking around.

"Once a month when I was little. After I started my apprenticeship with Jacobs I couldn't come often, but I still stopped by from time to time."

As the others settled in - Lockwood claimed one of the armchairs, while Quill and George tried to get to the other one after counting the amount of spaces. Holly was faster - I took a moment to look at the pin board. It was filled with postcards, photos of a young family of four, and children's drawings. Most of them were recent. They were done with crayon or felt tips, in the impatient strokes of the four-year-old that featured prominently in most of the pictures on the board. An older pencil drawing caught my eye.

The paper had yellowed a little with age, and the bright blue colour of the flowers had faded a little, but I still recognised the drawing. I had made it the afternoon after we had pruned the Hydrangea bush, using one of the cut-offs as a reference. The lines were thick and uneven, and I had smudged some of them while drawing, but I remembered how proud I had been of it when presenting the finished drawing to Mills. I never expected him to have kept it, let alone display it along the drawings of his grandson.

Mills came in a moment later, carrying a tray with a simple white tea set and a tray of chocolate digestives. That little detail made me smile. He didn't have a sweet tooth, but knew I did. He had most likely gone out and gotten the biscuits just for us.

"I see Thomas and his wife had another child?" I remarked, pointing at the photo that showed Mills' son holding a tiny bundle of pink blankets with a tender expression.

"Ah yes, Jane was born last summer. She's a wee thing still." Mills replied with a smile. He put the tray down on the coffee table and walked towards the door. "Meanwhile, Matt is discovering his artistic talent in kindergarten right now. He likes flowers for a subject as much as you did," he said, pointing at a childish rendition of a bouquet in crayon before leaving the room again.

It didn't take long for him to return, carrying a dining chair with him. He put it down between the couch and the armchair Lockwood was sitting in.

"There you go," he said, gesturing to the chair before pouring the tea and handing out the cups. He lowered his large frame into the small free space on the couch. Quill and George didn't look too happy about being squeezed against each other, but neither of them complained out loud.

"How are ye holding up, Lucy?" Mills asked after everyone had taken their cup and adjusted the tea to taste with milk or sugar. He was not the only one interested in the answer, though. I felt the five sets of eyes on me as I gave a little shrug.

"Well enough, I suppose," I replied. "It's been hard, but I'll get trough…" Mills reached out to give my hand a pat.

"Yer welcome here, if ye need a break. All of ye."

"I know, thank you. I don't think we'll be staying long though."

"You can have all the time you need, Lucy. I won't force you to come back with us if you are still needed here." Lockwood interjected.

"That's not…" I trailed off, unsure how to express that I didn't think I'd be able to stand being cooped up with my sisters and their families much longer. There had been a reason I came back to London early last November.

For a moment my half finished reply hung in the air, but it dissolved when Mills smiled.

"I see ye friends take good care of ye, Lucy."

"Of course" Holly said.

"She's an important member of our team," George added.

"Aye, that brings me to the reason I invited ye over," Mills said, putting his cup down on a coaster on the coffee table.

With my hands wrapped around the white teacup, I waited. While it was nice to see him again, I knew it was unlikely that Mills had invited us to his house just for a social visit. Not when he'd gone through all the trouble of slipping me a note during the condolences. There was more to it than just wanting to catch up with me after two years.

My patience was rewarded after Mills had taken a long sip of his tea.

"I'm sorry for all the… subterfuge," he started, as if slipping me the note had been some cunning act of deceit, "but I approached yer sisters before ye arrived, and they did not appreciate my attempts at contact."

Quill raised an eyebrow. "Why not?" he asked, reaching out to take one of the biscuits from the plate. He had to wriggle backwards to get back on the couch.

"Unpleasant histories," Mills replied, making a dismissive gesture, "Bygones…" It was true that my sister never had been fond of the stationmaster, although I never knew why. As far as I was aware, they had barely even exchanged 10 words between the seven of them.

"I wanted to give ye is this." Mills reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out something that gleamed in the light. A thin silver chain dangled from his hand as he held it out to me. I took the necklace from him, making sure not to let it slip through my fingers. Where the links touched, the silver had blackened with age, and the hook of the closure was scratched.

In the middle of the chain, a little rectangular plate interrupted the shackles. When I turned it over, I could read the inscription.

_Christopher Samuel Carlyle_

Silver is one of the most important defences against Visitors. Even old and oxidised, like this necklace, it repels ghosts and resists the supernatural energy necessary for an object to contain a psychic echo. So I knew that the sickly feeling in my stomach was entirely my own.

"Where- where did this come from?" I asked, trying to swallow past the lump in my throat, "I thought they buried him with it?"

"We have renovated the station hall over the past few months. One of the porters found it last week," Mills replied. The friendly smile had slipped off his face. Now he was watching me with concern.

I twisted the nameplate between my fingers, trying to keep my hands from shaking. The chain felt heavy in my hands, but the implication weighed even heavier.

"So, they found it in the days before Mrs Carlyle got… Ghost Touched?" George had come to the same conclusion as I did. We all knew what the implication of this was. Sometimes, sources could be inactive for decades, only to be found once something in their environment changed and their visitor was released.

My father had never passed on to the Other Side, or wherever it was where the dead who didn't return as Visitors went, he had been lurking at the station all along, only contained by the old silver necklace he had stashed away from us. Trapped by an item of value he had refused to share with my mother.

All this time we thought the precautions we had taken right after my father's death had been enough, that we'd sealed the objects most likely to be his source. Mam had even payed off his extensive tab at the pub. We thought we'd done all that was necessary to stop him from coming back, but the silver necklace in my hand proved that we had been wrong all along.

"Yeah, two days before," Mills replied to George's question. "I was going to hand it to Mrs Carlyle. She didn't keep many of Chris' belongings."

"She had to sell his valuables for the funeral," I recalled.

"That must have been awful," Holly mumbled. I shrugged.

"Funerals aren't cheap, and she had seven girls to feed. She didn't have much of a choice, really…"

I let the shackles slide through my fingers and allowed the necklace to clatter onto the glass tabletop. The harsh sound pulled me out of myself a bit, and I fought to keep my voice steady.

"Thank you for showing this to us," I said. "I think we may need to revisit the station tonight."

If Mills was surprised about that assertion, he hid it well. He just nodded and poured me another cup of tea.

Lockwood stretched his hand out to the necklace, and when I didn't make a move to stop him, scooped it up from the table.

"Did the porter tell you where he found it exactly, Mr Mills?" he asked.

"He didn't say, but we were replacing the locker unit that day. I assume he found it there."

Lockwood asked more questions, with George, Holly and Quill joining in and asking for clarifications from time to time. I didn't take part in the discussion. I was content to let my friends take the lead on this as I tried to reorganise my world into something familiar again.

We had another cup of tea and made some more small talk until it was time to go. I lagged behind a little as my friends filed into the hall, attempting to help Mills by gathering the used cups. He waved me off with a smile, though.

"It's fine, Lucy. I can do that in a bit. Join yer friends," he said, ushering me to the others. After we'd squeezed into the hall as well, he pulled the door to the living room shut behind him.

Lockwood handed me my jacket and then opened the front door, politely thanking Mills for the tea before stepping out. The others went after him, but I lingered just a little longer.

I held out my hand to Mills to shake goodbye, but when he grasped my hand, he pulled me against him in a short hug.

"Aam proud of ye," he said, slipping into the dialect I had grown up with. "Ye got good friends, an Lockwood is a canny lad"

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**A/N: Hello! Not an April fool's joke, but a new chapter! I hope you enjoyed reading this, please let me know what you think!**


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: Quick content warning: there is implied child-abuse in this chapter. Also a mention of being sick in the last few paragraphs, so this is a heads up for the people with emetophobia**

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Lockwood let us down to the station again the same evening of our visit to Stationmaster Mills. He wanted to get this over with as fast as possible, and nobody disagreed with him on that front. I was not the only one who was growing restless in Whitton on Dean.

Once we had entered the hall, we made our way to the lockers with little preamble. Mills had given us a strong lead, and now that Mr Mills had pointed us toward the lockers as a location of the source, I could barely believe how blind we had been during our last visit. Holly and Quill created a double chain circle a few feet from the locker unit, wide enough for the five of us to retreat into without having to rub shoulders, should the need arise.

We put our kit down in the circle and prepared to get down to some heavy lifting. Mills had assured us that the locker units should be movable if we took out the anchoring, but also promised that if we did have to damage anything to get to the source, he wouldn't hold us accountable. "Tear the damn things apart if it is necessary to make my station safe again. We don't need this kind of danger in town," were his exact words.

While Lockwood and Quill unscrewed the wall anchors, I ran my finger over the straps and pouches on my work belt, a nervous habit to reassure myself that I had all my defences on hand. I could defend myself if push came to shove. The others noticed my nerves, Holly didn't stray more than three feet from my side and George kept a sharp eye on me as well, but nobody saw fit to comment on it. Well, nobody except the skull, of course.

"_Careful with that flare, we wouldn't want you to drop it and blow burn down the entire station, would we?"_ It said merrily. "Shut up," I hissed back through gritted teeth. _"Ooh, someone's touchy. Are your nerves getting the better of you?" _

"My nerves are fine, thank you. Just shut up if you're not going to be helpful."

"_Oh you're no fun,"_ the skull complained. I could feel the psychic buzz coming from my backpack. _"I spent all day in that empty space under your bed, listening to you and that gaggle of sisters of yours argue about who gets the fine china. Let me have my fun!" _

"I'll turn the lever if you don't shut up," I threatened.

"_All right, all right. keep your hair on," _

I tuned out the skull and returned my attention to my friends. Lockwood and Quill had finished unscrewing the anchoring and walked back to our chain circle to store away the screwdrivers they had used.

"All right," Lockwood said, clapping his hands together to rub off traces of dust he may have picked up. "So far everything is quiet, but I think it would be a smart idea to do a quick sweep of the hall before we focus on finding the source. Just because the sun hasn't set yet, doesn't mean we can let our guards down."

This was a perfectly sensible way of working. Under any other circumstances, I would have commended Lockwood for the decision not to rush into the situation. It was important to do a preliminary sweep, it kept the amount of psychic surprises that could arise to a minimum. This time, however, I was anxious to get the ordeal over with. I wanted nothing more than to find the source and seal it up, so I would never have to set foot inside here at night again.

Still, Lockwood was the boss, and we had seen that my father's ghost wasn't a Visitor to laugh at, so I bit my tongue and got my thermometer out.

As expected, we didn't pick up on anything big. For now, the last rays of the sun warded off the psychic phenomena lurking in the shadows, and even the high-pitched whistling was absent at the moment. I still took a moment to close my eyes and open myself up to the station when I circled back to the lockers. Even a whisper of psychic sound could be enough to warn us of incoming danger. The only sounds I could hear were the shuffling of my teammates around the station, and the soft humming of the skull in the jar.

"There's a cold spot near the lockers, although the temp is only one degrees Celsius lower," George stated after we had reconvened in front of the lockers again, holding up his notebook to show the temperatures he had noted down. "I think the best course of action is to check behind the lockers and see if we can find something."

"I agree," Lockwood said. "Let's not waste time, I'd rather get this done before Mr Carlyle shows up."

Quill nodded, adjusting the goggles on his head. He had pulled them down over his eyes during our round, but because there was no imminent danger chose his broader field of view over the enhanced psychic vision. He followed Lockwood to one end of the locker unit.

"Hol, keep a look out for the ghost. We don't want to be taken by surprise," Lockwood said, awkwardly pulling at the lockers to create a space between the metal and the wall. George and I took our position on the other end, and together the four of us shoved the lockers aside so the wall was clear. There was a lighter section of wall which had been spared the hands of time as it had been covered by the previous unit, but besides the lighter colour, there did not seem to be anything special about the bricks at first glance.

"Right," Quill muttered. "I'm not seeing anything special, so I guess that means we will have to feel for loose bricks?"

"Yup," George agreed, popping the p. "We'll have to check them all, it will take a while, but it's the best-"

"We don't," I interrupted. George turned to me and raised his eyebrows.

"What do you mean, we don't?"

"There are spiders."

I pointed at the lower right corner of the exposed wall where two fat black spiders scurried away, disappearing into a small crack between two bricks in the darker area. While the others watched, I crouched down and felt the two bricks. The two were firmly stuck, but I was sure the spiders had given me a lead. While I felt the bricks of the lower right corner, Lockwood started feeling the bricks in the section above me, and Quill started in the middle.

I'm not sure how much time passed as we worked. Even disregarding the left section of the lighter wall, progress was slow. We felt each individual brick, pulled and wriggled to see if there was movement. I even used my penknife to hack away some mortar. Behind us Holly turned on the gas lantern when the natural light was getting low, and we continued.

It was Lockwood who got it. Two stabs with his pen knife were enough to dislodge the dried mud that disguised that someone had messed with brick, and with some prying and pulling, he pulled it out of the wall. Now that he had dislodged the brick, a recess in the wall was revealed. Or more accurately, a dark hole had appeared in the wall.

No light seemed to be able to reach beyond the anterior of the bricks. It was swallowed up by an inky darkness that made it impossible to estimate the depth of the recess. Even shining a torch into it directly did not make a difference. It reminded me of the way the windows of the kitchen door in Guppy's house had blacked out when the Ealing Cannibal played its first trick on me.

Lockwood was hesitant to just stick his hand in. The unnatural shadows could be anything from a psychic taunt to the first manifestations of my father's Dark Spectre. Carelessly reaching into it could be a fast way to get Ghost Touched.

"Quill, scatter some salt in and feel if there's anything in there," he ordered, putting the loose brick down on the floor and taking a step back.

"What? why me? You're right there!" Quill protested.

"Because it's your turn. One agent in the line of fire, you know, according to the Fittes Manual?"

Perhaps it wasn't the right thing to do, mentioning Quill's former employer. He flushed, the colour spreading down his pale skin to his neck. Indignation washed over his face, and he opened his mouth to give a rebuttal, but I didn't give them a chance to start a fight.

Without comment I slipped in between them, opening the satchel of iron filings on my belt and tossing a handful into the brick-shaped hole. The darkness fizzled out into a more natural shadow, and without giving myself time to overthink, I stuck my hand in. The opening was deeper than just the brick, and I had to feel around through the silky cobwebs clinging to my skin like some horrible parody of cotton candy.

There was a loud bang behind me, and Quill let out a heartfelt curse. It was tempting to turn around and look, but being this close to the source, that could be my last mistake. Instead, I trusted my team to have my back. Ignoring the spider skidding across my hand, I closed my fingers around the object hidden in the recess. The cold radiating off of it was biting, sucking away at my body warmth like a vacuum. I clenched my jaw and drew my hand back.

Along with the cold, something else shot up my arm to my shoulder. I recognised the feeling that preceded a psychic echo, but it was as if the muscles in my hand had cramped up, curling around the object I held like a vice. Sounds from the past welled up in my mind.

The sound of a belt unbuckling and whispered pleas, high pitched and afraid. Unbridled fury running through my veins.

The echo retreated, like the silence between two heartbeats, but returned full force a moment later. Feelings of anger turned into satisfaction, and then into a deep sense of self loathing and shame as I heard the soft, sniffling sobs of a young girl.

"If you do not shut up, I'll go to your sisters."

I finally managed to let go of the object, gasping for air. The cold and the echo drained from me so suddenly I lost my balance, falling backward and landing ungracefully on my bottom. My stomach was roiling, and I could taste bile on the back of my tongue.

The part of my brain that wasn't struggling with what I just experience expected to hear the skull snigger at me, or have it make a jibe at me, but he stayed uncharacteristically silent.

Someone put a hand on my shoulder, startling me so much I smacked it away.

"Lucy?" Lockwood questioned, pulling his hand back with a frown. "Are you all right?"

I wanted to answer him. Give him a reassuring Carlyle Grin. Do something to show him I was all right, but I was afraid I'd throw up my dinner over his shoes if I opened my mouth. I pressed the back of my hand against my lips and found that my face was wet with tears. I tried to focus on taking deep breaths through my nose until the nausea subsided.

While I gathered my bearings, Holly darted in front of me and swept up the source I had dropped. She looked somewhat disheveled, with her work belt having shifted from its regular position, and a few unruly strands of hair escaping her pony tail. I assume she and Quill had fought off the Visitor when the bang sounded behind me. I glimpsed a buckle and crumbling leather before Holly dropped it into a silverglass case, and my stomach cramped so violently at the sight, I nearly _did_ throw up. A part of the oppressing atmosphere dissipated as Holly locked the case, and I could breathe a little easier.

"Luce?" Lockwood started, "are you with us again?" He didn't try to touch me again, rubbing the back of his hand with his thumb. I had struck him with more force than I thought, but he seemed more worried about me than about the red spot blooming on his skin.

"S-sorry…" I managed. My voice cracked, and shame flooded through me. My own this time. Lockwood didn't seem to care I had hurt him, but I did. He had been so kind to me the last few days — all my friends had — and I had taken out the surplus of feelings on him. Was I any different from my father?

"Lockwood, I'm sorry, I-"

"Hey, it's okay Luce," Lockwood interrupted my second attempt at apologising. He crouched in front of me, extending a hand in my direction. His movements were slow but deliberate, and after a moment of hesitation I took his hand. He pulled me to my feet and let go, his expression calm and nonjudgemental. "The source is sealed now, you can take a moment to recover. Do you want tea?" He was pulling out his thermos even before I nodded, and I gratefully took it from him.

George was busy rifling through one of the kitbags. I thought he had been tucking away the source, but he pulled out a packet of digestives, offering me one of the chocolate covered biscuits. The tea washed away the lump in my throat and focussing on the sweet taste of the biscuit helped me ground myself a little more. Nobody spoke while we ate our biscuit and drank our tea, but that suited me just fine.

"So, are we done here now?" Holly asked a few minutes later. She adjusted her work belt and wiped a lock of hair out of her face, and she looked like her put together self again.

"I should think we are," Lockwood replied. "The phenomena stopped after you put away the belt, so it must be the source."

There was a murmur of agreement, and we packed our equipment. I was glad to leave the station behind, without another encounter with my father's spirit. I was sick and tired of the place.

As we walked down the station's steps, George slipped me an extra biscuit. It was a small gesture, but the rest of the way back to the cottage, my steps felt a little lighter.

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**A/N: Chapter 10! I'm slowly nearing the end, which is amazing after working on this fic for about a year! Please let me know what you think, because I thrive on feedback and I could use the dopamine rush I get from all your wonderful comments!**


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